some political petitions of potential interest

The following are two petitions that regard different political issues that may be of interest. Some people may be opposed to one or both on any number of grounds. But this is not a political forum. So sign/send to your congresspeople if you see fit. If not, then don't. The end.

(Sorry that none of these actually come up as links; you have to cut and paste.)

1. www.jcua.org/progress
Jewish Council on Urban Affairs' pre-pesach petition regarding immigrant rights.

2. New York State Legislature's proposed Child Victims Act to expand the conditions of child victims of sexual abuse to report their offenders. Read more about the issue on any of the following websites: http://protectchildrenny.org/ http://www.sol-reform.com http://survivorsforjustice.org
Uri L'Tzedek has sent out an email with the following sample letters to your state senator/assemblyperson. Obviously, this is limited to residents of NY.

To find the name/contact info of your assemblyperson: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/
To find the name/contact info of your state senator: http://www.senate.state.ny.us/sdlookup.nsf/Public_search?OpenForm

Sample letter to assemblyperson:

Hon. (name), Assemblyman/woman, State of New York
Dear Assemblyman/woman:

I am a member of the Orthodox Jewish community. As a constituent, I strongly urge you to support, without amendment, the Child Victims Act of New York, recently re-introduced in the Assembly as Bill #A2596 by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey.
There is a virulent but silent epidemic of child sexual abuse in our society. FBI studies show that one in five children will be sexually abused by the age of 18! Measures such as safety zones, offender registries, safe environments, and background checks help with known abusers, but we need to do much more to discover the unknown predators, those who are often shielded by New York's archaic and inadequate Statute of Limitations on Child Sexual Abuse. Since predators are known to abuse multiple victims-as many as 100-we can not continue to let New York's children be at risk!
Studies reveal that children who are victims of this heinous crime require many years into adulthood to gain the strength and courage to name their abuser. And only 10% of these crimes are ever reported! I hope you agree we must change this appalling situation.
The Child Victims Act would accomplish the following:
1. Extend the deadline for a victim to file a claim in court-from age 23 to age 28.
2. Suspend the Limitations for just one year, so those who have been denied justice in the past when little was known of this silent epidemic, and victims could be more readily intimated into silence, can now have their day in court.
When California enacted such a suspension, more than 300 previously undetected predators were discovered. We must do the same for the children of New York!

Please don't let NY state law be used against our children! I will call you next week for your position on this bill, and to answer any questions.
Thank you for your attention to this most serious matter. Thanks, too, for all that you do for the people of New York.
Sincerely yours,


Sample letter to state senator:
Hon. (name), Senator, State of New York
Dear Senator (name):
I am a member of the Jewish community. As a constituent, I strongly urge you to support, without amendment, the Child Victims Act of New York, recently introduced in the Senate as Bill #S2568 by Senator Thomas Duane.
There is a virulent but silent epidemic of child sexual abuse in our society. FBI studies show that one in five children will be sexually abused by the age of 18! Measures such as safety zones, offender registries, safe environments, and background checks help with known abusers, but we need to do much more to discover the unknown predators, those who are often shielded by New York's archaic and inadequate Statute of Limitations on Child Sexual Abuse. Since predators are known to abuse multiple victims-as many as 100-we can not continue to let New York's children be at risk!
Studies reveal that children who are victims of this heinous crime require many years into adulthood to gain the strength and courage to name their abuser. And only 10% of these crimes are ever reported! I hope you agree we must change this appalling situation.
The Child Victims Act would accomplish the following:
1. Extend the deadline for a victim to file a claim in court-from age 23 to age 28.
2. Suspend the Limitations for just one year, so those who have been denied justice in the past when little was known of this silent epidemic, and victims could be more readily intimated into silence, can now have their day in court.
When California enacted such a suspension, more than 300 previously undetected predators were discovered. We must do the same for the children of New York!

Please don't let NY state law be used against our children! I will call your office next week for your position on this bill, and to answer any questions.
Thank you for your attention to this most serious matter. Thanks, too, for all that you do for the people of New York.
Sincerely yours,

projects for next quarter

darlingest friends,
i want to put together some projects for next quarter.
thus far, the list looks like this:
--putting together a group to fix up the cemetery. in order to do this, we're going to need to do a tad bit of research about how to best do this. but we should definitely do it.
--visiting the elderly. mir and i have been contacting some places and we will do our best to pair everyone up with someone who is interested, but please let me know sooner rather than later if you are so that i can effectively help you out here.
--sandwiches--is anyone interested in this?
--learning--open beit midrash is every monday at 6.30 (unless we switch the time for next quarter). come learn. you can learn for the refua of cholim or just to learn. you can learn about social justice or just learn whatever you want.
--any other suggestions you may have.
tizku le'mitzvot.
and super good luck with finals.

Go Team Go!

team members pack up clothing into rabbi avi finegold's car so that he can deliver it to the Ark. THANKS TEAM! THANKS AVI!
(ps--pictures are in backwards order so just look at them in upside-down order...)