For the second time this year, four Orthodox Jews have been arrested for allegedly interfering in the trial of prominent Jewish leader/"therapist" Nechemya Weberman, who allegedly sexually abused one of his patients for several years, starting when the girl was only 12 years old.

The four men arrested allegedly took photos of the victim as she testified in front of a Brooklyn jury yesterday, presumably to intimidate the girl. One of the photos ended up on Twitter.

The four men -- Lemon Juice, 30, Joseph Fried, 23, Yona Weisman, 23, and Abraham Zupnick, 23 -- are all members of the insular Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism based in Williamsburgh, of which Weberman is a leader.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed super-sized soda ban isn't the only controversial topic that is going to be discussed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene this week.

Today, the Department is talking about the metzitzah b'peh -- a circumcision practice during which ritual practitioners "place their mouths directly on the child's circumcision wound to draw blood away from the circumcision cut."

And what exactly are they doing? The 11-member panel is listening to public comments on a "proposal to require parental consent for circumcisions practiced by ultra-Orthodox Jews," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Why? Well, between 2000 and 2011, 11 infants got herpes from this ritual. Ten infants were hospitalized, "at least two developed brain damage, and two babies died," the DOH reports.

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Four Orthodox Jews have been indicted on charges that they attempted to persuade/intimidate witnesses into not testifying in the upcoming trial against "therapist" Nechemya Weberman, who allegedly sexually abused one of his patients for several years, starting when the girl was only 12 years old.

Abraham Rubin, 48, was hit with several charges including four counts of bribing a witness, two counts of tampering with a witness in the fourth degree and one count of coercion in the second degree. Three brothers, Joseph, Jacob and Hertzka Berger, face additional charges for attempting to intimidate the witness -- according to authorities, they threatened to remove the rabbi-issued kosher certification from the witness' restaurant, and Jacob Berger physically went to the business and tore the kosher certificate off the wall.

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www.spinsucks.com

Thousands of male Orthodox Jews will make Citi Field seem like a 10-year-old's tree house this weekend, when they hold a women-less meeting about the risks of the Internet.

Orthodox Jews, as you may know, have a practice of strict gender separation, so woman will be able to watch the conference, but they have to do so on televisions at schools and event centers in Borough Park and other Orthodox neighborhoods, according to Hamodia, an Orthodox newspaper.

More than 40,000 Orthodox Jewish men are expected to pack the stadium -- and nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium -- to discuss the "dangers" of the Internet, and how to use it in a religiously responsible way.



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Aryeh Ralbag, the Brooklyn rabbi who also leads Amsterdam's Jewish community, might soon get booted from his Netherlands position for recent comments on homosexuality.

Problems came to a crux for Ralbag, who has held the long-distance post for six years, in January, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

At the time, Ralbag got suspended from his role in the Orthodox community for co-signing a declaration which described "homosexuality as a curable condition."

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Rebecca Wald

When the Brooklyn District Attorney's office announced that it would investigate the death of an infant who got herpes during a controversial circumcision practice, many decided to revisit the tradition, and ask whether it still has a place in modern society.

Now, this particular case deals with a very rare technique called metzitzah b'peh -- which is when the individual performing the procedure, the mohel, uses his mouth to suck blood away from the baby's penis.

Metzitzah b'peh tends to take place only in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, but New York has nevertheless tried to educate parents about the health risks of the practice: The New York Times reports that in 2003 and 2004, three cases of circumcision-linked herpes were reported to the City, one of which resulted in death.

Runnin' Scared caught up with Rebecca Wald, founder of Beyond the Bris, a multimedia forum for anti-circumcision Jews. Wald talked to us (and our sister paper!) about the practice and how this case has affected American Jews.

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The news that Mel Gibson is planning to make a Judah Maccabee biopic has caused quite a stir. While Judah Maccabee is one of the greatest heroes in the history of Judaism for leading the revolt against the Seleucid Empire, Mel Gibson loves getting drunk and ranting about how "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Why would Mel Gibson want to make a movie about a beloved Jew? The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg had heard about Gibson's interest in the story of Maccabee a couple years ago and asked him. Turns out, he thinks it would make one hell of an action movie.

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David and Judy Wax, an Orthodox New Jersey couple, turned themselves into the FBI today after allegedly beating an Israeli man and claiming they'd bury him alive unless he gave his wife a religious divorce. Yisrael Briskman, the supposed victim, fled Israel without authorizing his wife's "get," or Orthodox divorce document that would allow her to get married again, and as a result was blacklisted by the High Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem, who barred Jews from being kind or doing business with him. In New Jersey, Wax and some goons allegedly jumped Briskman and threatened him with a body bag. "For you to get used to the size," Wax reportedly told his tied-up hostage.

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We've noted Abe Foxman -- the Anti-Defamation League's very public, very loud, very condemnation-happy public face -- as an "known racist" and egomaniacal asshole" here. We're not the only ones who aren't fans of his: one ADL award-winner, Fareed Zakaria, recently returned a $10,000, five year-old award to them after the ADL announced their opposite to Park 51, the Cordoba Center (or, for those of you right-wing psychos who hate read us -- Hello again! -- the "Ground Zero Mosque"). So why are we so confused with Foxman's recent, sensible stances?

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