The Rabbi on the Beach at the Shul on The Beach
Do You Know How Many Prisoners Are In For Life Without Parole Who Committed Their Crimes As Juveniles?
I do.
It depends where you ask this question. There is one answer for the United States of America, the Land of the FREE and the Home of the Brave and there is one answer for the REST OF THE WORLD.
In the REST OF THE WORLD there are 0 / ZERO / nil / Zed / zip / zilch / nada.
In the United States of America, the Land of the FREE and the Home of the Brave there (more…)
I have visited a prison and a jail. (My Visit With Judith Clark at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility) I have learned a lot about the failures of our current system of incarceration and it sickens me. As a (realtively) outspoken individual I have made my opinions known to anyone who will listen.
I tell them that I am against prison in principle. I don’t think anyone should go to prison. It’s a waste of money and far worse it is a waste of a human being. People accomplish almost nothing while incarcerated. Society gives them a free ride and they produce next to nothing for society.
The first response I hear is usually related to the safety of society. That somehow we, on the outside, are safer if the criminals are isolated, on the inside. (more…)
The MTA has approved a pretty powerful anti-Cordoba Center ad.
Here is the ad:
I find the ad obscene. It is provocative, misleading and presumptuous all in one.
However, as much as the ICC has a right to exist, this ad has a right to exist as well. The same laws that protect the ICC, protect this obscene ad. (Note: If the ad was so incendiary as to cause violence it would NOT be protected by the constitution, in which case it would lose my meaningless approval as well)
The irony is that the folks behind the ad can hide behind the 1st Amendment but would deny the same rights to the Cordoba Center.
This past winter I wrote an article about Felony Murder for a student run Law Journal at Loyola Law School. (Read: I’ve Been Published! My Article On Felony Murder Is Online)
In researching the subject of Felony Murder I was introduced to the case of Judith Clark by Professor Gilda Zwerman who accompanied me to visit with Judith. Judith Clark has a website all about her crime, time served and the way she has rehabilitated her life while in prison. (Link: http://www.judithclark.org)
On Monday I had the opportunity to spend a couple hours with her in prison. It was very powerful. (more…)
An arab man lied to an Israeli woman about his ethnicity. After they “consummated the relationship” she discovered he was not Israeli, he was Arab. He was charged with rape.
He has been sentenced to 18 months in jail. He will appeal.
The headlines are scandalous.
Israeli Arab who ‘raped’ a woman says verdict ‘racist’
Sex with Jewish girl costs Arab man 18 months in Israeli jail
Over on DovBear (Israeli Court Shames Itself With Idiotic Ruling) there is a fairly predictable post and discussion about the merits of the Israeli court decision. (more…)
This summer I took a class at Loyola Law School called Hate Speech Seminar. The course was very discussion based with some non-traditional law school reading. We also read the key First Amendment (Free Speech) cases and important Law Review articles on regulating hate speech.
I learned a lot.
Part of the course was a trip to the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
I took my tour of the museum today. What follows are some general impressions. (more…)
[Alternate blog post title: Sex and the City 2 Billboards Are Offensive To Parents With Young Children.]
I love LA.
Living in LA has its perks. You get great weather 300 days a year, really friendly neighbors, not too many bugs, plenty of excitement, just enough peace and quiet, the Lakers, and a Shul on the Beach (with a lucky Rabbi). But like any big city, there are some drawbacks to living in LA. The traffic, superficiality, the helicopters outside my window at 2 AM, the expensive housing, and the schmutz.
What is schmutz? Literally, it means dirt. But in this context it means dirty in a provocative or an overtly sexual manner. (© me this very second) (more…)
This summer I am taking two classes at Law School that explore many of the issues and themes of racism. I am extremely fascinated by racism, and ethnic hatred. I am still sorting out my feelings on a lot of the issues and I am really happy that I am being exposes to the everything that we are discussing in class.
In Hate Speech Seminar we read a (poorly written, but very interesting) book about the White Supremacy Movement in California through the 80′s and 90′s. (It’s called Skinhead Confessions and you can buy it on Amazon: Skinhead Confessions: From Hate To Hope. Again, not very well written but very enlightening and an important book.)
The question we have been probing is: Where does racism come from? Why do people hate? (more…)
The Zen Master has spoken. (Again. Remember? The Zen Master Speaks on Curses, Karma and Mitzvahs)
When asked about the Arizona Immigration Law – state Senate Bill 1070, by ESPN.com columnist J.A. Adande, Jackson raised a few eyebrow. In fact he raised enough eyebrows that a protest is planned for tonight’s game at Staples Center in Downtown LA.
The LA Times has a full report here: Activists protest Lakers Coach Phil Jackson’s comments on Arizona’s new immigration law
What did Jackson say that set off the protesters? (more…)
This post has been cross-posted to DovBear. More discussion there. (Link)
If you are like me, you have been reading about the Rubashkin saga for months. What began with a Federal raid at a meat processing plant to ferret out hundreds of illegal alien employees is now culminating with a federal and state trial. (Link)
If you are like me, you have been hearing that the raid was “disproportionate” and fueled by anti-semitism.
If you are like me you have been hearing that he was denied bail because of an anti-semitic fear that Rubashkin was a flight risk and would flee to Israel.
If you are like me, you have been hearing that his federal sentencing recommendation was anti-semitic. (Link)
If you are like me, you have been hearing how the county jail was anti-semitic in not providing food that was kosher “to Rubashkin’s standards” and not permitting him to wear religious garb (tzitzis / tzitzit). (Link)
I have three things I want to say. (more…)
(what "publishing" meant before the internet)
There is a very ambitious fellow in our class at Law School. His name is Paymon Khatibi. One day Paymon decided that our class should start an independent journal of law related articles. We would write student notes just like the official Law Reviews and publish them online in a digital journal. Sounds easy, right?
Well it took a lot of work and management to have all the pieces fall into place. Incredibly, Paymon was relentless and did not give up on this dream of his. Today, that dream has become a reality. And for that we are all very grateful.
The Loyola Journal has been published online and is open to all readers. (more…)
This is part IV in a loosely connected series of posts on equality and change.
Parts 1-3:
-Simple Justice | The Story of Brown v. Board of Education: The End of Separate But Equal in Schools
-Reverse Discrimination and Oversensitivity
-The Mechanics of Change and How To Make A Difference
In 1868 Black Americans were granted equal protection and citizenship in the United States of America. However, in 1896 the Supreme Court of the United States held in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate was equal”. There was “no inferiority suggested by keeping races separate” and so things went for about 60 years. In 1954 in all changed. Brown v. Board of Education demonstrated to the SCOTUS that separate was not equal and it was held that states could not discriminate between races in matters that were of compelling government interest. The Civil Rights movement pressured states to remove all discriminatory laws and in 1964 the Civil Rights Act expanded the law forbidding discrimination to more scenarios. Today there is virtually no overt, legal discrimination in the United States of America.
How did one of the greatest legal and social changes in history occur? (more…)
A few weeks ago my brother-in-law asked me which branch of government I thought was the most powerful. I immediately answered, “Legislative”. He was surprised. As a fellow law student we read case after case where the Supreme Court overturned laws that it felt were unconstitutional. While that is true, it requires Herculean effort for the Supreme Court to overturn a law. The legislature can just write a new law whenever they want. That gives them almost all the power.
It has long been my feeling that legislatures are the best place to effect change in laws. Citizens can petition their law makers to make laws that they want and of they don’t make law that their constituents like, they can vote someone who will into office. Is this a slow process? Sure. But the Supreme Court process is even slower and the chance that your case will be heard is slim.
There is a second issue when the Judicial Branch speaks from “on-high” and mandates a change in law. (more…)
Last week I spoke at Pepperdine University about Jewish Lessons in Parenting. I began my talk by complimenting my parents and expressing my desire to emulate their parenting in the raising of my own children. One such example occurred today.
At Law School we are reading some of the most well-known Supreme Court Cases. A few weeks ago we read Roe v. Wade (banning 1st term abortion is unconstitutional) and the even more important Casey v. Planned Parenthood (upheld Roe) cases. Last week we read Plessy v. Ferguson (after Civil War, Separate but Equal schools were ruled constitutional).
This week we are reading Brown v. Board of Education. This case overruled Plessy and made Separate but Equal unconstitutional in Public Schools. (more…)
I am sure you have already heard the news. If you have not, here goes.
Today, a killer whale named Tilikum at Sea World Orlando killed a trainer. Yes. A whale. An animal that has no instinct to kill a human, killed a human, IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE! That was certainly more than the spectators bargained for…
You can read all about it all over the place, (more…)
This is a Public Service Announcement.
Don’t Smoke. Smoking is very bad for you. If you are really cool, please do not smoke around kids. They will think you are so cool and your cigs make you so cool and they will want to be like you and they will start smoking too. You don’t want that on your head. Do you?
Cigarettes are a dangerous product. They are addictive and toxic. Worse, the cigarette companies have managed to cultivate a glamour and coolness associated with smoking that influences many people to take up smoking.
How do I know the tobacco companies are influencing people to smoke? Because advertising works. If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t be fighting about their rights to advertise. And, they are fighting… (more…)
I used to be a thief. Let me tell you my story.
As a child I always played by my own rules. My mother would often say that I danced to the beat of a different band. A different drum was not enough to describe my differences, no, I needed a full band.
My career as a thief started when I was about 5 years old. At-least, that was the first time I remember recognizing that I was a thief. Perhaps I started earlier, but it just did not have the same impression on myself. (more…)
Last semester at Law School I studied Criminal Law. Crime is ugly. It hurts the victims and negatively affects the criminal’s life forever. Families can be shattered and communities can be destroyed by crime.
The system we have today only looks at the criminal. The goal of our criminal justice system is to incapacitate criminals and punish them for their acts. Little systematic rehabilitation is offered to criminals and consequently there is a high rate of recidivism in our prisons. We hope that punishing criminals will deter them and future criminals from pursuing a life of crime. Unfortunately, crime persists and criminals continue to crop up. (more…)
This short film is a “must-see”. It is part of Liberty Mutual’s “Responsibility Project”. Watch the film all the way through the very end.
Call me a sap, but this film brought tears to my eyes. Real, wet, tears.
Which left me wondering, the film is certainly nice, but why did it elicit such a strong reaction?
I think two parts of the film in particular were resonsible for my emotional response. (more…)
In the last few months there have been a few death penalty executions. Most notably the D.C. Sniper was executed on November 10, 2009. Since that time I have been thinking about the death penalty. I have discussed it on Twitter and in real life.
The last unit of our Criminal Law course was the Death Penalty. Professor Levenson asked for volunteers to argue for and against the death penal. Normally, I don’t jump at opportunities like this, I prefer to watch and observe other students try to make coherent arguments in front of their skeptical peers… Yet, my had shot up. It was almost involuntary. And I found myself on the side representing “against” the Death Penalty.
There were three of us and we split duties. I chose to make the moral argument against the death penalty. What follows was my basic argument. (more…)
The Good Wife is a new legal drama on CBS. The show is great. Usually the legal issues are portrayed correctly (at least from a law student’s perspective) and the character development of the main character has been superb.
This week’s episode revolved around a chasidic couple living in Chicago who were responsible to fix a fallen eruv wire, but since it fell on Shabbos they had to wait until Shabbos had ended and in the meantime a woman claims she fell over the wire and is suing for 1.2 million dollars in punitive damages. The title of the episode does not refer to the couple, rather it refers to their lawyer with an unorthodox approach to law.
Read on for my comments, critiques and a HUGE PLOT HOLE. (more…)
We took the family to Santa Monica Pier on Sunday and our six year old son proved to be smarter than a Supreme Court Justice!
It is so beautiful to walk along the beach and observe all the excitement along the boardwalk and pier. As always, we had a great time in Santa Monica.
For the last few years there has been a protest / exhibit just north of the pier. The protestors are against war in general, the Iraq war in specific and pretty much the entire defense budget of the United States.
They call it Arlington West and they have set up a faux graveyard in the sand representing the fallen soldiers in what they call a criminal war. (more…)
Lawyers take the brunt of a lot of jokes and jabs questioning their ethics.
Believe it or not, Law Schools actually teach Ethical Lawyering and every student is required to pass that class prior to taking the bar.
Law blog Legal Geekery (recommended reading for law students) has an article criticizing the way Law Schools attempt to teach ethics to future lawyers.
This essay was inspired by a recent post on DovBear. I have cross posted this post there as well. Head over there for more discussion.
What follows is my understanding of The Oral Law and its transmission to us. This article does not attempt to validate or prove its transmission as fact, rather it explains just what is being transmitted when we refer to Torah SheBaal Peh (TSBP).
I am sure there are plenty of maamarei Chazal that are not 100% congruent with this approach. I am also sure that there are many maamarei Chazal that do jive with this approach. I have spent many hours studying and analyzing the concept of TSBP and what follows is what I believe to be a rational, coherent, non-apologetic approach. (more…)
Yesterday I flew from New York to Los Angeles. We got to the airport just under 3 hours before our flight. This is a direct result of missing a few flights in the last few years. We always err on the side of caution.
I stopped in a Hudson Books to peruse the available reading material. Prominently displayed was a new book by Ben Mezrich called “The Accidental Billionaires“. I am a big fan of Mezrich having read, Busting Vegas, Rigged and of course Bringing Down the House (I recommend all those books). I took a look at the book and discovered it was about the founding and founders of Facebook.
I bought the book.
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