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Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts

Friday, 19 July 2013

Is the Dot-Kosher Internet Domain Extension Kosher?

Posted on 14:15 by Unknown
Some rabbis say yes; other rabbis say no.

Here's a both ironic and Talmudic kosher story to end your week from Bloomberg ("It’s Rabbi Versus Rabbi in $17 Billion Dot-Kosher Battle"). "The Internet’s organizing body, called Icann, is meeting this week in the South African port city of Durban to begin a major expansion of domain names. That may include a decision on who can operate and license “dot-kosher” as a suffix for Web addresses, the same way “dot-com” and “dot-net” are used."

When rabbis engage in a dispute like this one, well that's Talmudic:
Five organizations have banded together to oppose the sole applicant for dot-kosher, Kosher Marketing Assets, saying it seeks to profit from a sacred tradition that shouldn’t be over-commercialized. The two sides, which both are in the business of certifying food as kosher, are at odds over how Internet users will find such products in the future.
And when rabbis say obviously silly things, well that's ironic:
“We think that if the term ‘kosher,’ which has important meaning in the Jewish religion, is commercialized, it will do a disservice to how religion in general should be treated and will harm the kosher public specifically,” said Harvey Blitz, the Kashruth Commission chairman of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, one of the five groups. The New York-based organization oversees OU Kosher, the world’s largest certification agency.
Ironic here because there is no question that Kosher certification agencies have already commercialized kosher supervision.

We sure hope these rabbis work this domain dispute out.
Kosher Marketing Assets is a unit of OK Kosher Certification, a Brooklyn, New York-based competitor to OU Kosher. Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, OK Kosher’s CEO, said he never intended to control the potential domain name unilaterally and said he was open to working with the five groups -- the Orthodox Union, STAR-K Kosher Certification Inc., Chicago Rabbinical Council Inc., the Kashruth Council of Canada, and Kosher Supervision Service Inc., better known as the KOF-K.
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Posted in Is-it-kosher?, kosher, money, rabbis | No comments

Sunday, 14 July 2013

Team One Family Triathlon Special: Free Kindle Book: God's Favorite Prayers

Posted on 16:23 by Unknown
I swam in the Hudson on a rally team with Team One Family in the NYC Tri this Sunday. Yitz did the whole tri.

So here is my Triathlon Offer: God's Favorite Prayers
Free Kindle Book from now until Sunday Night July 14.

Make a contribution to Team One Family to sponsor Yitz to help victims of terror.


Purchase all of Our Talmudic Books
Buy the Kindle Talmud in English
Ponder the Questions of Whence and Wherefore
Experience the paperback of God's Favorite Prayers
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Posted in amazon, kindle, money, prayer, sports | No comments

Dear Rabbi Swims in Hudson River on a Triathlon Relay Team

Posted on 16:18 by Unknown
It happened on Sunday, July 14! We did it!

And believe me - it was tough!

Update: Yitz's dad (that's me) swam 1500 meters in the Hudson as part of a relay for Team One with teammates Harvey (bike) and Leiba (run).

Yitz completed all three legs of the tri in excellent time.

Yitzhak Zahavy's Team One Family Fundraising Triathlon Event. Help Celebrate Three Lives with Three Sports.

Yitz Tells What Happened
On October 27, 2002 my platoon in the IDF was attacked by a hamas suicide bomber outside the city of Ariel. Three soldiers, Amihud Hasid, Tamir Masad and Matan Zagron, where killed saving my life and the lives of my fellow soldiers. The One Family Fund is helping their families cope with the difficulties of life without their loved ones.



New York City Triathlon July 14
To celebrate the lives of the three brave Israeli soldiers who saved my life, I will compete in the NYC Triathlon. I will swim, bike and run to raise money for their families and for other families who lost their loved ones to acts of terror.
Helping Out
Please help support victims of terror and their families by donating as much as your can. Please donate.
Check out the story about my fundraising efforts  in the Jewish Standard.
My Goal
This year my goal is to raise $3600, that is $1200 for each man who saved my life.
The One Family Fund
The One Family Fund is at the side of Israel's terror victims – be they civilians or soldiers- from the moment of an attack through the many years of recovery. OneFamily provides victims and their families with the emotional, financial, legal and material assistance they need to rebuild their shattered lives. Through hospital visits, camps, retreats, holiday programs and one-on-one assistance, OneFamily is helping more than 2400 families.

Pledge / Donate

Thank you for your generous help.
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Posted in israel, money, sports, teaneck, terrorism | No comments

Monday, 8 July 2013

Former Students File $380 Million Sex Abuse Lawsuit against Yeshiva University

Posted on 19:32 by Unknown
This is a sad story about the school that I attended for eleven years, from high school through rabbinical school.

An attorney in New York has filed suit against Yeshiva University on behalf of a group of students who were sexually abused while attending the school.

The Forward newspaper reported on this legal filing, "Former Y.U. High School Students File $380M Suit Claiming Sex Abuse Cover-Up".

The 148 page legal filing is detailed and graphic and, as I read it, quite compelling. It can be read below.

Lawsuit filed by former Yeshiva University High School Students against Y.U.


Talmudic Books - Kindle Talmud in English - Whence and Wherefore - God's Favorite Prayers
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Posted in gay rights, money, New York Jews, norman lamm, religion, universities, yeshiva | No comments

Thursday, 4 July 2013

Lawsuit: True Religion is Worth More than $325 Million

Posted on 13:36 by Unknown
Bloomberg reported that the True Religion jeans company agreed to be bought out for $325 million.

A shareholder suit now alleges that the jeans company is worth more than than and that the company erroneously agreed to a below market value buyout.

Our question: "True Religion’s women’s Cameron Vintage “Boyfriend” jeans cost $317 for a pair, while the women’s Carrie Patchwork Flare jean are listed at $323, according to the company’s website." Who buys jeans for more than $300 a pair?

And yes, it looks like True Religion is Jewish, at least that its founder is Jewish. "True Religion was founded in 2002 by Jeffrey Lubell, who began embellishing jeans as a teen growing up in New York. He took the company public the following year, according to its website. True Religion operated 124 stores in the U.S. and 31 international locations as of March 31."

The buyers may not all be Jewish, "TowerBrook is a New York-based private-equity firm founded by Ramez Sousou and Neal Moszkowski, who also serve as co-CEOs. Its previous retail investments include the Jimmy Choo Ltd luxury brand, acquired by Labelux GmbH in 2011."

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Posted in are-they-jewish?, humor, money | No comments

Tuesday, 2 July 2013

Summer Sale -- We Reduced Prices on Our Talmudic Books

Posted on 06:50 by Unknown
Summer Sale. Wow. Our Talmudic Kindle Book Prices are Reduced!

Kosher Talmud: Hullin $.99

God's Favorite Prayers $2.99

Define Judaism: Ten Seminars $2.99

God Bless You: The Origins of Jewish Prayers and Blessings $2.99

Eleazar: Rabbi, Priest, Patriarch $2.99

Kosher Prayers: Talmud Yerushalmi Berakhot $2.99

Rashi: The Greatest Exegete $.99

Six People You Meet in Synagogue $.99

Whence and Wherefore $2.99
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Posted in bible, book club, books, Holocaust, kabbalah, kaddish, meditation, money, politics, prayer, rabbis, religion, synagogues, talmud, Talmudic Books, universities, yeshiva, zionism | No comments

Sunday, 30 June 2013

Jewish Times: Are Hebrew National Hot Dogs Really Kosher?

Posted on 04:16 by Unknown
Yes. Hebrew National Hot Dogs have been kosher since 1905.

We eat them. But we know lots of more-kosher-than-thou types who don't partake. Those are the Jewish folk who answer to an even "higher authority" than Hebrew National.

Kenneth Lasson, writing in a Baltimore Jewish Times cover story in 2009, weaves together reportage about the hot dog industry, the kashrut supervision industry and baseball parks to come up with a fascinating fabric of a story, "Hebrew National and Kosher Politics - What’s kosher about answering to a higher authority?".

For years there have been some super-glatt-orthodox who whisper about whether the supervision of Hebrew National was "reliable." Lasson covers this controversy and says for instance,
...As to Triangle K, Rabbi Abadi wrote on the kashrut.org Web site, “Rabbi Ralbag is a G-d-fearing man and if he says it’s kosher, you sure can eat it. I can’t say the same for many of the other labels out there.”...more...
The Talmudic question is of course, can we trust the writing of Kenneth Lasson. Is he reliable? Is he glatt kosher? /repost from 7-9-09/

Kosher Talmud: Babylonian Talmud Hullin
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Posted in baseball, Is-it-kosher?, kosher, money, orthodox, rabbis, sports | No comments

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Was Marc Rich Jewish?

Posted on 07:25 by Unknown
Yes, Jewish-American billionaire Marc Rich was a Jew. He will be buried in Israel.

JPost reports on Rich's controversial life:
LUCERNE, Switzerland - Jewish-American billionaire Marc Rich, who invented oil trading and was pardoned by then US president Bill Clinton over what had once been the biggest tax evasion case in US history and busting sanctions with Iran, died on Wednesday from a stroke in Switzerland at 78.

Rich fled the Holocaust with his parents for America to become the most successful and controversial trader of his time and a fugitive from US justice, enjoying decades of comfortable privacy at his sprawling Villa Rosa on Lake Lucerne.

Belgian-born Rich, whose trading group eventually became the global commodities powerhouse Glencore Xstrata, died in hospital from a stroke, spokesman Christian Koenig said.

At the villa, with views of the nearby mountains and grounds sloping down to the banks of the lake, security guards and other staff could be seen but there was no sign of family members.

"He will be brought to Israel for burial," Avner Azulay, managing director of the Marc Rich Foundation, said by telephone. Rich will be buried on Thursday at Kibbutz Einat cemetery near Tel Aviv.

Many of the biggest players in oil and metals trading trace their roots back to Rich, whose triumph in the 1960s and 70s was to create a spot market for crude oil, wresting business away from the world's big oil groups.

To his critics, he was a white-collar criminal, a serial sanctions breaker, who they accused of building a fortune trading with revolutionary Iran, Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, apartheid-era South Africa, Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, Fidel Castro's Cuba and Augusto Pinochet's Chile.

In interviews with journalist Daniel Ammann for his biography, The King of Oil, the normally obsessively secretive Rich admitted to bribing officials in countries such as Nigeria and to assisting the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.

Clinton's regret

Rich became a fugitive in 1983, fleeing to Switzerland to escape charges of exploiting the US embargo against Iran to make huge profits on illicit Iranian oil sales. He was also indicted for wire fraud, racketeering and tax evasion.

He remained under threat of a life sentence in a US jail until Clinton pardoned him during the last chaotic days of his presidency, a move that provoked moral outrage and bewilderment amongst some politicians.

Clinton later said he regretted granting the pardon, calling it "terrible politics."

"It wasn't worth the damage to my reputation," he told Newsweek magazine in 2002.

Rich, who was born Marcell David Reich in Antwerp on December 18, 1934, began his career with one of the biggest trading houses of the time, Philipp Brothers, subsequently Phibro, aged 20. He left in 1974 with a fellow graduate of the Phibro mailroom, Pincus "Pinky" Green, and set up Marc Rich and Co AG in Switzerland, a firm that would eventually become Glencore Xstrata Plc.

"We are saddened to hear of the death of Marc," Glencore Xstrata Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg said. "He was a friend and one of the great pioneers of the commodities trading industry, founding the company that became Glencore."

In later years, Rich's fortune dwindled after his property portfolio was hit by the Spanish housing crisis.

"I invested a lot of money there and because of the crisis also lost a lot, at least on paper," he said in a rare interview, with Swiss economic magazine Bilanz. Forbes put his wealth at $2.5 billion.

Rich once told Fortune magazine he was a normal person with an image problem.

"I've been portrayed in a horrible way," he said, "as a workaholic, a loner, a money machine. It's not a true picture."

Ken Hill, a US Marshall who hunted Rich around the world for more than a decade, once said Rich profited from greed.

"The smoking gun is greed," he said. "This is what Marc thrived on - the greed of those who had commodities and were in positions of influence and power."
Talmudic Books
Kindle Talmud in English
Whence and Wherefore
God's Favorite Prayers
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Posted in are-they-jewish?, Holocaust, israel, money, politics | No comments

Saturday, 15 June 2013

Forbes: Waze Will be the Wikipedia of All Maps and the Search Bar for the Real World

Posted on 20:22 by Unknown
Forbes has a background article on Waze in the aftermath of the news that Google will buy the company. What Waze Adds To Google: A View From Waze's CEO

It turns out that Waze is not just a GPS app for your car on your smartphone. Waze is a community of users who will contribute to the indexing of the physical world. It aspires to be to the actual earth, what Google is to the Internet. Or something like that.

After reading the interview with the CEO of Waze, it seems to me that Waze wants to be more the user edited Wikipedia of the real world of roads and traffic. And keep in mind that the crowd-sourced quality of Wikipedia information is not always the greatest.
Bardin said the new user interface for search was the map. But how did Waze build its own maps, which are thought to be just as good, if not at times better, than the ones $410-billion-market-cap Apple produced? By crowd-sourcing GPS data, and “combining the algorithms of people.” It sounds straightforward in theory, but it involved building a hierarchical structure of passive users and editors, a self-managed community like Wikipedia. The community has country managers who oversee area managers, who then oversee the editors, with each level having a greater level of permissions to alter Waze’s maps.
And the big brag from the CEO that earned the company a bid of over $1 billion: “Whenever you’re going onto the web, you start with a search bar,” he said. “Wherever you’re going in the real world, you’re going to start with Waze.”

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Posted in apple, google, inventions, iPhone, israel, money | No comments

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Google Will Buy Israeli Waze App for > $1 Billion

Posted on 10:50 by Unknown
Google is buying Waze - an excellent GPS and traffic app that I have used on my Samsung Galaxy S3. I use it as a second source of traffic information as I make my way across America's worst road - the Cross Bronx Distressway. It's fairly accurate and offers creative alternative routes when needed.

Join 648,000 others. Get Waze from Google Play.

This is great news for the Israeli high tech sector.

This is bad news for United Jewish Appeal and Federation fund raisers. Even though there is poverty and need in Israel, it gets harder to raise money in the US for destitute Israelis, each time another Israeli company reaches a billion dollar valuation.
Google said to be close to buying Waze, developer of crowdsourced map app
By Elizabeth Heichler, IDG News Service

Google is close to a deal to acquire Waze, maker of the eponymous crowdsourced mapping app, for at least $1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal and others.

The potential deal was first reported by Israeli business site Globes which said it would be worth $1.3 billion, citing sources.

Started in Israel, now with offices in Palo Alto headed by CEO Noam Bardin, the company says it has about 45 million users in 193 countries, according to the Journal. Waze originated in 2006 as an open-source mapping project led by CTO Ehud Shabtai; the company formed two years later with venture-capital backing, according to information on its website.

The app allows users to tap into shared traffic and navigation information. Data on road obstacles, rush-hour snarls, accidents and the like can be shared with other drivers in real time. The most recent version of the app delivered last month, Waze 3.7, includes integration with Facebook that places Facebook events in users' navigation lists and allows them to see the progress of Waze-using friends travelling to the same event. Users can also join the community of map editors to improve data on the maps themselves, which use TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) data from the US Census Bureau. The app is free, supported by location-based advertising.
How to use waze.
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Posted in humor, inventions, israel, money | No comments

Monday, 10 June 2013

Are dirty tricks in negotiations kosher?

Posted on 19:19 by Unknown
Day after day we see ill will and bad faith in the negotiations in our marketplace and workplace.

No, dirty tricks are not kosher.

But you ask, exactly what are dirty tricks and how can you deal with them?

Several years ago we took one course in Negotiations in the MBA program at Rutgers. Each year the brilliant professor who taught the course, Daniel Levin sends emails to his former students to remind them about how to respond in a negotiation to the prevalent issue of distributive tactics or what we normally call "dirty tricks."

According to Levin, the top ten dirty tricks in negotiations are:
1. Good Cop/Bad Cop
2. Emotional Intimidation
3. Lowball (or Highball) Offer
4. Opening with a Take It or Leave It Offer
5. Exploiting the Trappings of Power
6. Increasing an Offer's Appearance of Legitimacy
7. Pretending to Have Limited Authority
8. Playing a Game of Chicken
9. Lying about Priorities
10. Nibbling
Levin gives us his priceless suggestions for responses in his Talmudic analysis here. Study it and study it some more, because everything you need to know about dirty tricks is in that grid.

We've said many times that in all of the years of our education through college and rabbinical school and graduate school at Brown, Levin's negotiations course in the MBA program at Rutgers was the most valuable course that we ever took.

We use the skills that we learned there every day.

Thank you again Dan Levin.
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Posted in dirty tricks, Is-it-kosher?, money, politics, universities | No comments

Sunday, 9 June 2013

Is Economist Nouriel Roubini Jewish?

Posted on 14:52 by Unknown
Yes, famous economist Nouriel Roubini is a Jew.

He was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1959 to Iranian Jewish parents. He moved to Tehran, Iran, when he was two.  He is currently a U.S. citizen and speaks English, Farsi, Italian, and Hebrew.

Roubini spent one year in college at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before moving to Italy and receiving his B.A., summa cum laude in Economics from the Bocconi University  in Milan in 1982.

He received his Ph.D. in international economics from Harvard University in 1988.

June 7, 2013 he predicted that gold prices will drop 30% to below $1000.
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Posted in are-they-jewish?, hebrew, israel, money | No comments

Friday, 7 June 2013

Times: Israel Trying to Fix the Broken Haredi Community

Posted on 08:58 by Unknown
Haredim in Israel are held captive from their birth by communal leaders who keep them from general and advanced education and bar them from socialization into the streams of Israeli cultural and commercial life.

The Times' Jodi Rudroren writes "Israel Prods Ultra-Orthodox to 'Share Burden'": "...Because of Orthodox men's commitment to full-time Torah study and a fear of assimilation, only a little more than 4 in 10 of them work, less than half the rate of other Jewish men in Israel, and their average salaries are 57 percent of other Jewish men in the country. Nearly 60 percent of Haredi families live in poverty, and by 2050 they are expected to make up more than a quarter of Israel's population..."

The Haredi community needs help.
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Posted in hasidism, israel, money, orthodox, religion, zionism | No comments

Monday, 15 April 2013

Technology to the Rescue to Solve the Social Problem of Sock Puppets

Posted on 08:15 by Unknown
The integrity and value of social networks and of commercial product and service reviews depends on the authenticity of the content.

Big companies like Amazon and big universities like Cornell and others are hard at work developing policies and algorithms to solve the problem of sock puppet posting of reviews and other content on the Internet.

Here are three examples:

1. Cornell software fingers fake online reviews: Cornell brainiacs have come up with software that spots fake reviews, something we humans aren't good at. Fictitious happy customers beware.

2. A sock puppet detection algorithm on virtual spaces. Knowledge-Based Systems (January 2013), 37, Complete, pg. 366-377.

"On virtual spaces, some individuals use multiple usernames or copycat/forge other users (usually called “sock puppet”) to communicate with others. Those sock puppets are fake identities through which members of Internet community praise or create the illusion of support for the product or one’s work, pretending to be a different person. A fundamental problem is how to identify these sock puppets.

"In this paper, we propose a sock puppet detection algorithm which combines authorship-identification techniques and link analysis. Firstly, we propose an interesting social network model in which links between two IDs are built if they have similar attitudes to most topics that both of them participate in; then, the edges are pruned according a hypothesis test, which consider the impact of their writing styles; finally, the link-based community detection for pruned network is performed. Compared to traditional methods, our approach has three advantages: (1) it conforms to the practical meanings of sock puppet community; (2) it can be applied in online situation; (3) it increases the efficiency of link analysis. In the experimental work, we evaluate our method using real datasets and compared our approach with several previous methods; the results have proved above advantages."

3. Amazon Tackles Review Problem, Deletes Wrong Reviews (Forbes): Amazon is quite strict about their policy. They take questionable reviews right down, and if questioned they explain it bluntly:
I’m sorry for any previous concerns regarding your reviews on our site. We do not allow reviews on behalf of a person or company with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product. This includes authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product.

We have removed your reviews as they are in violation of our guidelines. We will not be able to go into further detail about our research.

I understand that you are upset, and I regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. However, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on this matter.
As is often the case in the world of high-tech, social problems can be solved in part by developing even more high tech.

We recommend these books for you!
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Posted in amazon, bloggers, inventions, money, rabbis | No comments

Thursday, 28 March 2013

Free at Last from Friday through Sunday: Six People You Meet in Synagogue

Posted on 08:50 by Unknown
For the Passover holidays, the Talmudic Blog and Talmudic Books is giving away a new book:  Six People You Meet in Synagogue.

In this book, the author, Tzvee Zahavy, presents six ideal personalities of Jewish prayer and their respective prayers.

This is a condensed version of the author's previous work, God's Favorite Prayers (Talmudic Books, 2011) where he first developed the notion of the six distinct prayer archetypes: the performer, the mystic, the scribe, the priest, the meditator and the celebrity.

Six People You Meet in Synagogue
For Kindle from Amazon: FREE for Passover -- from Friday through Sunday, March 29-31.

Check Out all the Talmudic Books
See the Kindle Edition Talmud in English
ALSO FREE 
for Passover -- Ponder the Questions of Whence and Wherefore -- FREE 
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Posted in amazon, archetypes, Holocaust, kabbalah, kaddish, kindle, meditation, money, politics, prayer, rav, soloveitchik, synagogues, talmud, Talmudic Books | No comments

Saturday, 23 March 2013

The Sarajevo Haggadah -- the most Expensive Haggadah in the World

Posted on 18:00 by Unknown
We have posted here about all of the free Haggadahs for Passover Seders that are available on the Internet. That led us to consider asking -- what is the most expensive Haggadah in the world?

The answer is -- the rare illuminated Sarajevo Haggadah which also is said to be one of the most beautiful manuscripts and one of the most valuable books in existence.

Our facsimile of The Sarajevo Haggadah that we bought a while back is awesome.

If you are at all interested in this Haggadah, you must read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.

Wikipedia explains:
The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains the traditional text of the Passover Haggadah which accompanies the Passover Seder. It is the oldest Sephardic Haggadah in the world, originating in Barcelona around 1350. The Haggadah is presently owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, where it is on permanent display.

The Sarajevo Haggadah is handwritten on bleached calfskin and illuminated in copper and gold. It opens with 34 pages of illustrations of key scenes in the Bible from creation through the death of Moses. Its pages are stained with wine, evidence that it was used at many Passover Seders. It is considered to be the most beautiful illuminated Jewish manuscript in existence and one of the most valuable books in the world. In 1991 it was appraised at US $700 million....more...
You can view quite a few pages from the Sarajevo Haggadah here.  

Or you can purchase a facsimile edition of your own here: The Sarajevo Haggadah  or see this web site here.


More posts about the Haggadah...
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Posted in books, haggadah, hebrew, money, Passover, prayer, rabbis, religion | No comments

Monday, 4 March 2013

Is Carlos Slim Helú Jewish?

Posted on 18:23 by Unknown
No, Carlos Slim Helú is not a Jew. He is of Lebanese origins and a Maronite Catholic by religion.

This Mexican businessman and philanthropist made his fortune in the telecommunications industry and other ventures such as retailing, construction, banking, insurance, railroads and mining.

Carlos is said to be the richest man in the world. Slim's wealth was estimated at $53.5 billion by Forbes (2010).

Helú topped the Forbes list again in 2011 at $74 billion. Yes, that was quite a nice bump. In 2012 he held steady at $73 billion according to Forbes.

He made an investment in the New York Times in 2010, "a $250 million loan intended to help the newspaper company finance its businesses." /updated repost/
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Posted in are-they-jewish?, christianity, money, religion | No comments

Thursday, 14 February 2013

Is Warren Buffett Jewish?

Posted on 19:12 by Unknown
No, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, and (according to Forbes) the richest person in the world, is not a Jew.

Warren Buffett is an avowed agnostic.

He was raised as a Presbyterian. His father was a Presbyterian who served in Congress as a far-right Republican. Buffett attended Sunday School as a Presbyterian.

Warren does not subscribe to his family's religion.

In the 1950's Buffet was friendly with and played bridge with his Omaha neighbors, Rabbi Myer and Mrs. Kripke. Over the years Buffet has had many links to Jews and the Jewish community in Omaha.

In 2006 Buffet bought an 80 percent share in the Israeli metalworks conglomerate, Iscar, for $4 billion. /repost from 9/24/08/
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Posted in are-they-jewish?, christianity, israel, money, religion | No comments

Thursday, 10 January 2013

Is Jack Lew Jewish?

Posted on 12:11 by Unknown
Yes, Jack Lew is a Jew.
President Obama has nominated him to be the secretary of the treasury.
JTA reports:
Will Republicans let Lew get to Treasury? | JTA - Jewish & Israel News
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Posted in are-they-jewish?, barack, money, obama, politics | No comments

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

Bad News for Ezra Merkin and his Investors

Posted on 07:28 by Unknown
According to a report from Bloomberg News a federal court will decide some aspects of the Madoff-Merkin settlements. Although legal matters like this one are hard to sort out, this development is potentially bad news for Merkin's victims, and good news for Madoff's victims, as the story explains:
...Last week's ruling doesn't answer the ultimate question of whether Picard can stop the Merkin settlement. It only means that Rakoff will decide critical questions underlying the dispute.

Schneiderman takes the position it would be "unprecedented for a federal court to enjoin the settlement of claims by a state law enforcement agency against non-debtors." Picard is suing Merkin for more than $500 million. If Schneiderman is allowed to settle, Picard contends Merkin won't have money left to pay his claims.

Whether Picard wins ultimately will decide who receives the $410 million from Merkin.
If Picard wins, halts the Attorney General's lawsuit, and recovers $410 million or more from Merkin, Picard will distribute the funds to Madoff customers and likely not include Merkin's own investors. The Attorney General, on the other hand, will turn over most of the $410 million to customers of Merkin.

The Madoff firm began liquidating in December 2008, with appointment of a trustee under the Securities Investor Protection Act. Bernard Madoff individually went into an involuntary Chapter 7 liquidation in April 2009. His bankruptcy case was consolidated with the firm's liquidation. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence following a guilty plea.
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Posted in madoff, Merkin, money, New York Jews, synagogues, universities, yeshiva | No comments
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  • Note to Self: Do not wear Geox shoes in the rain or snow. They have little holes in soles!
    We wear Geox shoes almost all the time nowadays. They are truly more comfortable for someone like us who mainly sits at a desk throughout th...
  • Rav Soloveitchik's Dissertation at the University of Berlin
    In honor of the 20th yahrzeit of the Rav's passing (on Hol HaMoed Pesach, the 18th of Nisan, in 1993) and of the 110th year since his bi...

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