RAMAPO - An electrical malfunction ignited the fire that destroyed a lunchroom and auditorium at an Orthodox Jewish day school earlier this month, Ramapo police said today.
A short among the wiring near the auditorium stage caused the fire Feb. 13 at the Adolph Schreiber Hebrew Academy at 70 Highview Ave.
Karben was retained by the village nearly a year ago as "special counsel" for legal issues related to the proposed project on Orange Avenue and has been paid with taxpayer dollars since the builder pulled out of the project in October. 
Ginsburg Development Companies, then the prospective builder, established a $10,000 account with the village to pay Karben, who is also a former county legislator.
The company, though, pulled out of the project, citing the slumping real estate market. Suffern returned to Ginsburg $3,942 that was left in the account for Karben, then continued to pay Karben from the village's General Fund.
Karben has been paid $3,178 by Suffern, Village Treasurer Thomas Zordan said.
Trustee Jack Meehan was surprised that Karben was being paid by the village.
"There's been no vote by the village board to pay him," Meehan said. "My understanding, and I may have misunderstood, but my understanding was that he would not be paid with village funds, but strictly with funds from Ginsburg."
The continuation of Karben's employment has been unaffected by his Jan. 30 arrest on charges of driving while intoxicated.
(JN)
Mayor John Keegan said Friday that he would welcome a private meeting with representatives of the Latino community. He said he also would be open to attending an informational forum for the general community.
Suffern wants to enroll in 287(g), a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program to partner with local law enforcement. Under the partnership, village officers would be trained to identify criminals who are undocumented, detain them on immigration charges and start deportation proceedings.If anyone knows of a missing 45 to 50-year-old about 350lb with a small gray beard, please contect the NYPD of the 70th Pct at 718-851-5511
According to press reports hundreds of Jews in the Syrian town of Al Qamishli, located near the Turkish border, face threats of annihilation. Their property has been appropriated and the police persecute them and throw many into prisons and torture chambers. The town's impressive beis knesses was commandeered by the army and turned into a horse barn, Rachmono litzlan, and according to recent reports four women from the town were arrested on charges of assisting their husbands to cross the border illegally. After five years of imprisonment and torture they were on the verge of losing their sanity.
Reports on developments in this community of 450 Jews are few and muddled. They are cut off from the rest of the world. Tourists and reporters are banned from entering the town's Jewish ghetto and the Jews are under house arrest, unauthorized to leave the town even for urgent medical care. Their stores have been confiscated and they are forbidden to engage in commerce, which is their only source of income. They are also forbidden to maintain ties with the local non- Jewish population. A curfew on them starts at dusk and spot checks are often conducted to ensure that they are at home. Many Jews caught trying to flee have been thrown into torture chambers.
(dei"ah Vdibur)
There has been much talk regarding the Kol Koreh issued by Gedoley Yisroel banning the “Big Event Concert”.
Yeshiva World has reported that Lipa Schmeltzer has spoken to them and he has informed us that he will not be singing at the “Big Event Concert”. This decision was reached after he consulted with Daas Torah, and talking to leading Gedoley Yisroel.
(YWN)
WEST NYACK - The state has ruled that United Water New York did indeed violate the terms of its permit by releasing too much water from the Lake DeForest reservoir into New Jersey.
County officials had reported the action out of concern for the local water supply, which relies primarily on the rain and snow that falls within Rockland's borders. The supply can be challenged if there has been low precipitation, and the temperature and demand for water soar. 
United Water hired a consultant to review the releases and acknowledged it had sent more water than was allowed. The company then reduced the amount it released for 17 days to make up the deficit.
United Water must now appear before the state for a "compliance conference" to discuss a resolution to the violations, the Department of Environmental Conservation said.
The discharges took place last year between June 1 and Sept. 22, when the company released 231 million gallons more than it was allowed, according to a DEC notice of violation obtained by The Journal News under the Freedom of Information Law.
The DEC also ordered United Water to stop violating the conditions of its permit and to commit no further violations.
United Water provides drinking water to the majority of homes and businesses in Rockland. Lake DeForest can supply about one-third of the daily supply.
(JN)
The threat of a snowstorm has caused many Rockland schools to announced they will close and cancel transportation tomorrow.
Rockland residents on either the district's formal or informal e-mail notice list were alerted to the change early this afternoon.
While the building is being cleaned, East Ramapo's administrators offered ASHAR space at Lime Kiln, just up the road from the school, all this week during February vacation.
"Any opportunity that we have to settle things, ease problems, ease pain, reach out, that's the most gratifying thing in life and we work very hard at that in East Ramapo," Schools Superintendent Mitchell Schwartz said.
So while Lime Kiln's students were enjoying their break, ASHAR's staff and 350 students found a temporary home
(JN).
It revealed itself last week in St. Lawrence's criticism of Keegan for considering a sale of village water to United Water New York.
Keegan noted other matters that he thinks have put him in St. Lawrence's doghouse.For one thing, the mayor wasn't thrilled that a clock the town installed with the village's permission broadcasts a greeting from St. Lawrence. Keegan has asked Ramapo to remove the recording.
"This is Ramapo Supervisor Christopher P. St. Lawrence wishing you a lovely day," the talking clock announces just a moment after the hour on mornings, afternoons and early evenings.
Ramapo's clock was installed last year. It's a 20-foot-tall, four-sided shining black beauty that cost the town's taxpayers nearly $30,000. It sits in a vest-pocket park on the southeast corner of the Orange Avenue intersection.
St. Lawrence said the town has installed seven clocks as part of a beautification campaign. He said he taped the recording for the Suffern clock because it was an available option.
"I kept it short, 2.8 seconds," St. Lawrence said.
The clock also plays short renditions of music.
St. Lawrence emphasized that he liked Keegan. His criticism of the potential water sale, St. Lawrence said, was not meant as an attack on the mayor.
Then St. Lawrence later suggested that Keegan wished to discourage Hispanics from being in the village.
"He called Elaine Silverberg (a St. Lawrence assistant) and said he didn't want Hispanic music played because he didn't want Hispanics to feel welcome in the village," St. Lawrence said.
"That's baloney," Keegan said, when called later. "I didn't say anything like that."
Keegan suggested that a reporter call Gail Curtin, the village's recreation director, who he said had handled Suffern's requests regarding the clock.
Curtin, contacted at home, said she couldn't say anything without having the paperwork, which she said was in her office.
Another potential sore point with St. Lawrence, Keegan said, was that the village had reduced town revenue last week when Suffern decided to have its own building and fire inspectors instead of part-time ones from the town.
During the past five years, the town got $685,236 for the services, Keegan said, mostly from a fee-splitting arrangement.
Village Treasurer Thomas Zordan expected Suffern would save about $70,000 annually, even after paying $65,000 for its two inspectors.
Keegan said he upset St. Lawrence because "I dumped his building inspector and his fire inspector."
St. Lawrence said the loss of town revenue didn't bother him.
"We were glad to help them," he said, "and if they need our help in the future we'll be there to help them again."
Keegan was still smarting yesterday from what he saw as a tongue lashing from St. Lawrence on local television and radio.
"We're only researching this thing," Keegan said of the water sale. "We haven't agreed to anything, and as mayor it's my responsibility to research ways to get out of a $630,000 (Water Department) deficit without raising rates that could go up as high as 26 percent."
Suffern could receive as much as $200,000 annually for providing water daily a few months of the year.
It seemed to Keegan that St. Lawrence should keep out of village affairs.
"I take offense at the way he did it," Keegan said. "There he was for about 15 minutes ripping me up."
St. Lawrence saw it differently.
"I'm not attacking the mayor," St. Lawrence said. "I'm attacking Suffern selling its water. I think it's bad public policy."
St. Lawrence said he was merely informing viewers of the Suffern Board of Trustees' March 10 meeting, when the water-sale issue will be open to public discussion.
A week earlier, on March 3, St. Lawrence will host his own meeting on the potential sale. That will be at 7 p.m. at the Ramapo Senior Center on Route 202 in Montebello, just outside Suffern.
"The public's invited," St. Lawrence said, "and I'll be sending an invitation to the mayor and village board."
LOS ANGELES - Someone threw a fiery object at a Jewish community center in the San Fernando Valley, and police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles says someone threw a Molotov cocktail at its community center in West Hills early Monday. No injuries or damages were reported.
Police spokesman Mike Lopez couldn't confirm whether the object was a Molotov cocktail. He says it was a flammable object which caught fire.
The city's police and fire departments are investigating the attack as a hate crime.
RAMAPO - Supporters of the proposed village of Ladentown say they may keep fighting for incorporation despite a knockout punch by the state's highest court.
Plans for a village adjacent to Pomona in northern Ramapo germinated nearly six years ago in response to concerns about potential development on the 200-acre Patrick Farm. 
It's a concern that continues and one that could withstand the Court of Appeals' decision not to review Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence's rejection of a petition to incorporate the area as a village.
The court denied a request last week by James Barnard and other Ladentown supporters to hear their case after losses in state Supreme Court and in its Appellate Division, the first level for appeals.
"It's disappointing," Barnard said yesterday. "We thought it was an issue with statewide ramifications, and as such, one that the Court of Appeals would hear."
This week, Carl Malamud invites you to enhance your federal case law library by downloading millions of pages of decisions stretching back more than 250 years, all free of charge.
His latest online "public works" project is a Web site, public.resource.org, which will open up all Supreme Court opinions dating back to the 1700s and all U.S. appeals courts decisions dating back to 1950. The activist's efforts for the nonprofit group present a potential challenge to paid legal research services Thomson and LexisNexis.
Malamud's northern California-based group last week received full delivery of content from legal research company Fastcase, which agreed in November to sell the information with no strings attached. Malamud's group has spent the past several days reformatting the data to post on the Web site, an event that will occur sometime this week.
"We're about getting bulk data and making it available," free of charge, to the public, Malamud told the Law Tribune last week. "I want to see all federal case law downloadable in bulk."
By Douglas S. MalanMay Hashem yisborach repair our nation's breaches.
(signed) Yosef Sholom Eliashiv
(Dei"ah veDibur)
Rockland County has received additional federal funds to allow low income families to apply for a second cash grant to help pay their heating bills.
HEAP the state's annual Home Energy Assistance Program, is run by the county Department of Social Services. The programs start every year in November and is typically a one-time grant.
The extra money will allow for a second emergency benefit for those eligible families that have received a HEAP grant this winter but are still unable to pay their heating bills.
"We are very thankful that New York State received this extra funding. This will allow numerous families here in Rockland to stay warm this winter," DSS Commissioner Susan Sherwood said in a statement.
Please be Mispallel for the Tosher Rebbe Shlita - who was rushed by Hatzolah to Jewish General Hospital in Montreal on Monday morning with severe difficulty breathing. Unfortunately, his condition has deteriorated throughout the day, and is reportedly in critical condition. There will be Minyanim for Tehillim in all Tosher Batei Midrashim 5:15PM EST. Please be Mispallel for Mishulim Fayish ben Tzirel.
A new study finds an association between heavy cell phone use and tumors
An Israeli scientist, Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, has found a link between cell phone usage and the development of tumors.
Dr. Sadetzki, published the results of a study recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology, in which she and her colleagues found that heavy cell phone users were subject to a higher risk of benign and malignant tumors of the salivary gland.
Those who used a cell phone heavily on the side of the head where the tumor developed were found to have an increased risk of about 50% for developing a tumor of the main salivary gland (parotid), compared to those who did not use cell phones.
“This unique population has given us an indication that cell phone use is associated with cancer,” adds Sadetzki, whose study investigated nearly 500 people in Israel who had been diagnosed with benign and malignant tumors of the salivary gland.
The study also found an increased risk of cancer for heavy users who lived in rural areas. Due to fewer antennas, cell phones in rural areas need to emit more radiation to communicate effectively. Sadetzki predicts that, over time, the greatest effects will be found in heavy users and children.
“While I think this technology is here to stay,” Sadetzki says, “I believe precautions should be taken in order to diminish the exposure and lower the risk for health hazards.” She recommends that people use hands-free devices at all times, and when talking, hold the phone away from one’s body. Less frequent calls, shorter in duration, should also have some preventative effect.
Parents need to consider at what age their children start using them. Parents should be vigilant about their children’s using speakers or hands-free devices, and about limiting the number of calls and amount of time their children spend on the phone.
We, the undersigned former Village of Mamaroneck officials, collectively write to correct several misstatements and factual inaccuracies that have recently been made and printed in various newspapers and journals relative to the Westchester Day School case. During a majority of the time that the Westchester Day School case was being litigated, we collectively served as elected and appointed officials of the Village of Mamaroneck. (The village recently agreed to pay $4.75 million in damages to the school to settle a lawsuit brought under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 - Editor.)RLUIPA
Some members of the current Village of Mamaroneck Board of Trustees have made serious disparaging statements, specifically, that the village's attorneys did not advise the members of the Board of Trustees and zoning board of the potential impact of losing the Westchester Day School case, and that a few residents influenced the village (members of the zoning board) to the detriment of the village at large.
The current members of the Board of Trustees who made these statements are incorrect, mistaken and/or misinformed. It is clear that these statements were made purely for political purposes and to justify a settlement of $4.75 million......
"This was sold as a kosher suit in Hong Kong,'' he said. "But it is only fulfilling the legal requirement, not the Torah requirement.''
Across the globe, rabbis and religious scholars are devoting large chunks of their lives to protecting an arcane Jewish called shatnez, the mixing of wool and linen is forbidden by the Torah, whether in garments, sofas, carpet, boots or baseball gloves. Yet the Federal Trade Commission often only requires labels to list materials comprising the shell of the product.
That has forced Orthodox Jewish communities to cultivate their own textile police. Over the years, they have grown under one organization, the NCSTAR, with their headquarters in a cramped basement of a private home in Lakewood.
There, Shocket and his NCSTAR co-director Yosef Sayagh, teach the laborious science of identifying shatnez. A typical training session involves three to six pupils bent over a microscope from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. Passing a final test will authorize them to begin an apprenticeship under a seasoned tester. xtease Intense screening.
Only three or four courses are offered each year. Students range from doctors, computer programmers and engineers to Hasidic rabbis and rabbinical college students. They are admitted after an intense round of screening that involves written recommendations and aptitude tests in dexterity, patience and eyesight.
There about 80 testing labs in the United States and Canada and another 62 abroad. Those labs not started by NCSTAR eventually joined the group.
Besides teaching, Shocket and Sayagh also police the local clothing shops and dry cleaners. Shocket said he visits about six stores every week, charging $15 to $40 to remove shatnez, which is most commonly found in higher end suits. [app]
Military and intelligence sources report fears in Washington and Jerusalem that Bashar Assad’s strategists are working up a frame for anti-SyrianSyrian LebaneseLebanese forces, especially Druze leader WalidWalid JumblattJumblatt, for engineering the death of Hizballah commander ImadImad MughniyehMughniyeh in Damascus on Feb. 13. Therefore, while plotting revenge on Israel, Syria may well launch a series of military incursions, spearheaded by Hizballah, to achieve their shared goal of unseating the pro-WesternWestern FouadFouad SinioraSiniora government.
Is this typical Syrian opportunism or something more sinister? DirectorDirector ofof USUS NationalNational IntelligenceIntelligence MikeMike McConnellMcConnell suggested Sunday, Feb. 17, that while Hizballah is blaming Israel, “…there's some evidence that it may have been internal Hezbollah. It may have been Syria. We don't know yet, and we're trying to sort that out.” Meanwhile FBIFBI has put counter-terror squads on alert in the US.
At approximately 4:30AM a massive fire broke out in the Satmar Matzoh Bakery in Williamsburg - causing extensive damage. The 3rd alarm fire which originated in the basement of 799 Kent Avenue, was contained to the basement (where the bakery is located) - and did not spread to the upstairs of the building - which is the home of the Krula Cheder. More than 100 members of the FDNY were called to battle the fire, and Williamsburg Hatzolah was called to the scene to stand-by.
The fire was placed under control at approximately 7:30AM, and only two firefighters suffered minor injuries.
A YWN reporter (YW-88) who was on the scene spoke with FDNY Battalion #57 about the damage. The Chief said that “although there were reports of the flames showing throughout the entire structure, it seems that the flames were travelling up to the roof through various chimneys from the bakery - thus saving the entire Cheder building.”
YW-112 spoke with the Krula Mosdos a few moments ago, and they advised YWN that due to the smoke damage in the Cheder building, classes will (most probably) be held at the Krula Bais Medrash - located at 127 Wallabout Street.
The Matzoh bakery is the bakery belonging to the Satmar Chassidim - under the leadership of the Satmar Rebbe of Kiryas Yoel Shlita - and bakes tens of thousands of pounds of Matzoh each year. The bakery is a fairly new bakery, and their main bakery is located in Kiryas Yoel.
Rabbi Gafni objected to the position espoused by Schneller, who claimed that all gedolei Torah support the proposal. Rabbi Gafni said that in fact the opposite is true. Maran HaRav Eliashiv shlita issued instructions to oppose the law, saying that according to halochoh as long as the heart continues to beat the patient is considered alive in every respect and it is strictly forbidden to deny medical treatment, and as such UTJ has decided to oppose the bill.
Rabbi Gafni even called on every family who faces such situations, chas vesholom, to demand full treatment for the patient based on legal rights.
Letter from HaRav Eliashiv shlita about Brain Death
I hereby reiterate my opinion, which I put on record on the eighteenth of Menachem Av 5751, that according to our holy Torah, as long as the heart beats, even though the patient has suffered brain death, there is no license whatsoever to remove any organ from his body.
May Hashem yisborach repair our nation’s breaches.
(signed) Yosef Sholom Eliashiv
(Yechiel Sever for Dei’ah veDibur)
SUFFERN - Starting this month, heart patients will get more than a bill and stack of instructions when they leave Good Samaritan Hospital.
Now they are also getting free membership in a company that will provide emergency care and medical evacuation anywhere in the world when they travel more than 150 miles from home.
"It's an added patient benefit to extend care far beyond the walls of the hospital," said Sandi Jeanette, community liason for the hospital's cardiac care center.
The hospital has already started to offer the plan to patients leaving the heart center. The arrangement with MedJetAssist, an Alabama-based company, gives patients a one-year membership.
That membership guarantees that the company will send a medically equipped and staffed aircraft to transport any sick or injured person covered by the plan and take that person to whatever hospital he or she chooses at no cost.
"We think it's a terrific expression of confidence in the hospital," said Joe Allen, vice president of community affairs at Active International, a Pearl River marketing and corporate trading company and leading contributor to the heart center at Good Samaritan, which bears its name. "If you have surgery at the Active International Cardiovascular Institute and you need help while you are traveling, they will come and get you."
Under the plan, people can be taken to whatever hospital they choose for medical care if they fall sick or are injured while traveling.
Patients have 60 days after they leave the hospital to activate the plans.
Emergency medical transportation can cost $20,000 domestically and more than $75,000 internationally, according to MedJetAssist.
Active International bought the memberships and donated them to Good Sam.
The hospital started offering the membership to patients who were being discharged from the heart center earlier this month.
What could have ended in tragedy - ended in a miracle this afternoon. We have learned that a vehicle carrying Bochrim from Yeshiva Ner Yisroel in Baltimore was travelling to Lakewood for a Chasunah. At some point in the state of Delaware, on I95, the vehicle was involved in a major accident - totaling the vehicle. Bichasdei Hashem all the Bochrim were able to extricate themselves from the vehicle - all with no injuries.
A charter bus that was travelling from Baltimore to Lakewood for the same Chasunah, stopped off to pick up the Bochrim and took them to the Chasunah.
