New York City - Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver dropped something of a bombshell this morning at a breakfast hosted by City Hall news, declaring his personal support of the commuter tax and saying he'd be willing to pass it in his Democrat-dominated house. That should come as music to the ears of Silver's frequent political foe, Mayor Bloomberg, who just announced yet another round of budget...

Brooklyn, NY - US Senator Joe Biden who is the Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate recently met privately with Ezra Friedlander and Simcha Eichenstein of The Friedlander Group, to discuss how the Jewish community feels about the Obama--Biden ticket and how they can reach out to the Orthodox Jewish electorate in key swing states including Florida. Conventional wisdom says that although New York...

New York, NY - After years of massive expansion, real estate brokers are bracing themselves for a reversal of bank oversaturation. There are as many retail bank branches in the area as there are Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts combined. Now Washington Mutual has postponed opening new branches, and other banks are consolidating their branches. One broker predicts that "we might have empty...

Roosevelt, NJ - Bert Ellentuck watched the adolescent boys with tzistzis and yarmulkes shooting hoops next door and sighed. "The people who settled this town were Jews; oh, they were socialists, communists and anti-religion, but they were Jews," Ellentuck said. "I'm a Jew, those kids are Jews, and the biggest problem facing this town in years is about Jews." Difficult times have come to...

New York - The recent rash of cases in which rabbis have allegedly molested young children going back decades has moved one group that usually bristles at government involvement in Orthodox schools to envision shifting its stance. “Our general sense is that we’re much better off when government leaves us alone,” said David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America...

Brooklyn, NY - VIN News has learned that kings county district attorney Charles Hynes and new york city human resources administration commissioner Robert Doar will announce this morning the arrest and indictment of five welfare cheats. The five defendants who live in Brooklyn, stole a total of more than $500,000 in benefits. One of the defendants has a successful company, with offices in the...

Montreal, Canada - The Canadian Jewish Congress is asking for an "exemplary sentence" for Azim Ibragimov, who firebombed a Montreal school two years ago. Pre-sentencing arguments in Ibragimov's case got underway at a Montreal courthouse Wednesday before being put over until next month. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to firebombing Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys school in Outremont...

Jerusalem - Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said Wednesday that the High Rabbinical Court's statement suggesting that the conversions preformed by Rabbi Chaim Drukman, former head of the Conversions Court, should be overturned, has no legal or halachic standing. Thousands of conversions preformed by Rabbi Drukman and Rabbi Chaim Avior have been called into question, after the High Rabbinical...

Lithuania - Lithuanian prosecutors said they are dropping a war crimes investigation of an Israeli Holocaust historian who served with Soviet forces in the Baltic state. In a statement, the prosecutor's office cited a "failure to collect sufficient data grounding primary suspicions" as its reason for halting its investigation of Yitzhak Arad, 81, who worked with Soviet security forces in the...