"A story little told is that of Jews in Hollywood's seedier cousin, the adult film industry. Perhaps we'd prefer that the 'triple exthnics' didn't exist, but there's no getting away from the fact that secular Jews played (and still continue to play) a disproportionate role throughout the adult film industry in America. Jewish involvement in pornography has a long history in the United States, as Jews have helped transform a fringe subculture into what has become a primary constituent of Americana. These are the 'true blue' Jews. Smut peddlers

Jewish activity in the porn industry divides into two (sometimes overlapping) genres: pornographers and performers. Though Jews make up only two percent of the American population, they have been prominent in pornography. Many erotica dealers in the book trade between 1890 and 1940 were immigrant Jews of German origin ...

In the postwar era, America's most notorious pornographer was Reuben Sturman, the 'Walt Disney of porn.' According to the US Department of Justice, throughout the 1970s Sturman controlled most of the pornography circulating in the country ... By the mid-80s he owned over 200 adult bookstores ... It was said that Sturman did not simply control the adult-entertainment industry, he was the industry.

Eventually he was convicted of tax evasion and other crimes and died, disgraced, in prison in 1997. His son, David, continued running the family business. The contemporary incarnation of Sturman is Steven Hirsch, a 43-year-old Jewish Clevelander who has been described as the 'Donald Trump of porno.' The link between the two is Steve's father, Fred, who was a stockholder-cum-lieutenant to Sturman. Today Hirsch runs the Vivid Entertainment Group, which has been called the Microsoft of the porn world, the top producer of 'adult' films in the US. His specialty was to import mainstream marketing techniques into the porn business. Indeed, Vivid parallels the Hollywood studio system of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly in its exclusive contracts to porn stars who are hired and moulded by Hirsch ...

Jews accounted for most of the leading male performers as well as a sizeable number of female stars in porn movies of the 1970s and '80s. The doyen of the Hebrew studs is Ron Jeremy ... [H]e's the nebischy, fat, hairy, ugly guy (an image from his web site opens this article) who gets to bed dozens of beautiful women. He presents an image of a modern-day King David, a Jewish superstud who supersedes the traditional heroes of Jewish lore ...

As probably the most famous Jewish male porn star, Jeremy has done wonders for the psyche of Jewish men in America ... Seymore Butts, aka Adam Glasser, is everything that Jeremy is not: young, handsome, and toned ... Within a few years, 'Seymore Butts' -- his nom de porn which is simultaneously his sales pitch -- became one of the largest franchises in the adult-film business ... [H]e is today probably the most famous Jewish porn mogul ...

Glasser employs 12 people, including his mother and cousin ... Gertzman (Jay Gertzman, author of Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940) explains that 'Jews, when they found themselves excluded from a field of endeavor, turned to a profession in which they sensed they could eventually thrive by cooperating with colleagues in a community of effort' ... The adult entertainment business required something that Jews possessed in abundance: chutzpah .. Of course, the large number of Jews in porn were mainly motivated by the desire to make profits ... As Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the ADL, commented, 'Those Jews who enter the pornography industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream" ...

Sturman ... identified as a Jew -- was a generous donator to Jewish charities -- and the performer Richard Pacheco was once interviewed to be a rabbinical student ... Is there a deeper reason, beyond the mere financial, as to why Jews in particular have become involved in porn? There is surely an element of rebellion in Jewish X-rated participation. It's very taboo and [its] forbidden nature serves to make it attractive.

As I have written in these pages before, treyf signifies 'the whole world of forbidden sexuality, the sexuality of the goyim, and there all the delights are imagined to lie ..." (Reel Kashrut, Jewish food in film, JQ 189, Spring 2003) According to one anonymous industry insider quoted by E. Michael Jones in the magazine Culture Wars (May 2003), 'the leading male performers through the 1980s came from secular Jewish upbringings and the females from Roman Catholic day schools.' The standard porn scenario became, as a result, a Jewish fantasy of schtupping the Catholic shiksa ...

Extending the subversive thesis, Jewish involvement in the X-rated industry can be seen as a proverbial two fingers to the entire WASP establishment. Some porn stars viewed themselves as frontline fighters in the spiritual battle between Christian America and secular humanism.

According to [Luke] Ford, Jewish X-rated actors often brag about their 'joy in being anarchic, sexual gadflies to the puritanical beast'. Jewish involvement in porn, by this argument, is the result of an atavistic hatred of Christian authority: they are trying to weaken the dominant culture in America by moral subversion ...

Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw magazine, said (on lukeford.com), 'The only reason that Jews are in pornography is that we think that Christ sucks. Catholicism sucks. We don't believe in authoritarianism." Pornography thus becomes a way of defiling Christian culture and, as it penetrates to the very heart of the American mainstream (and is no doubt consumed by those very same WASPs), its subversive character becomes more charged ...

It is a case of the traditional revolutionary/radical drive of immigrant Jews in America being channeled into sexual rather than leftist politics. Just as Jews have been disproportionately represented in radical movements over the years, so they are disproportionately represented in the porn industry. Jews in America have been sexual revolutionaries. A large amount of the material on sexual liberation was written by Jews. Those at the forefront of the movement that forced America to adopt a more liberal view of sex were Jewish ..

Overall, then, porn performers are a group of people who praise rebellion, self-fulfilment, and promiscuity. What are we ashamed of? This brief overview and analysis of the role and motivations behind pornographers and performers is intended to shed light on a neglected topic in American Jewish popular culture. Little has been written about it."

[Nathan Abrams is a Lecturer in Modern American History at the University of Aberdeen. He has just completed a book on neo-conservatism in the United States.]

"Towering Men and Stout-Hearted Sisters": Book review of Jewish scholar Jay Gertzman's Bookleggers an Smuthounds

Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2000

"A great many of the publishers and peddlers of what was variously called flagitious, pornographic, or erotic literature were Jews, and most of those were German Jews who had learned the printing trades in the old country.

This fact of course fed right into the animosity of anti-smut crusaders who constantly decried the 'foreign, radical, corrupting' character of the smut peddlers. The main protagonists in this battle for the soul, if not the groin, of America were the patrician John Saxton Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, and Samuel Roth, a writer, poet and genuine man of letters and an equally authentic purveyor of sleaze. Roth, for example, not only published (and often pirated) works by Lawrence, Joyce, Miller and legitimate classics, but also printed and peddled flip books, pornographic playing cards, albums of 'French postcards' and the vulgarities known as 'Tijuana Bibles.'

Just to compound matters, during his various stints in prison Roth wrote works like Jews Must Live, a book of rabid anti-Jewish sentiment that Gertzman says still circulates in anti-Semitic circles today ... Gertzman himself acknowledges towards the end of his book that his uncle once ran the most notorious 'dirty bookshop' in Philadelphia. For that matter, Sam Roth's grandson is none other than Prof. James Kugel, the eminent Bible scholar at Harvard University. If there's a more complicated and surprising tribe on earth, I've yet to hear about it."

"Porners Must Live." San Francisco Bay Guardian, October 25, 2000

"The story of the Web's most influential pornophile is nearly unbelievable: the son of an Australian Christian evangelist, Ford converted to Orthodox Judaism in 1993 – a 'porn-again Jew' in Fordspeak – under the theological influence of right-wing Jewish talk-radio demagogue Dennis Prager (whose Web site Ford also runs).

As a result, Ford's site is not really a porn site at all. It's a daily chronicle of how devout Judaism and devout pornology play themselves out in one man's endless public arguments with himself. The basic premise: how can someone devote his professional life to an industry he believes is, in Ford's own words, 'profoundly destructive and hence immoral ... another form of rebellion against God.'

Ford is a religious Jew, not a cultural one, yet it is cultural Jews – 'non-Jewish Jews,' he calls them – with whom Ford's site is most invested, specifically all those non-Jewish Jews who get it on and buy and sell the getting-it-on in the porn industry. Like all of his polemics, Ford's essay on these Jews is a rambling collage of theories, interviews, and uncited historical references that never really coalesce into an identifiable argument.

Ford is less of an opinion maker and more of an archivist-chronicler, his agenda always buried beneath layers of deferral and ambiguity. In the piece, Ford turns the Jews-run-Hollywood riff into a Jews-run-porn riff, listing off the secret Hebraic roots of all the key players – Randy 'Andy Abrams' West, Barbara 'Stacy Mitnick' Dare. He also feeds the age-old anti-Semitic connection that Hitler turned into grounds for genocide in Mein Kampf – Jews as dirty, parasitic merchants of smut, disease, and moral pollution – by emphasizing the high number of Jewish porn publishers throughout smut's history."

Jews in pornography]. 2001

"Secular Jews play a disproportionate role throughout the sex industry ... Jews accounted for most of the leading male [pornography] performers of the 1970s and '80s ...

If the Torah [Pentateutch] command Jews 'to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,' and Judaism strongly opposes porn, why do Jews dominate porn? ... Pornographer Seymore Butts attributes the large number of Jews in porn to the desire for profits. Jews gravitate towards money ...

I have not yet met a Jewish guy who wasn't horny as a rabbit,' says [Jewish porn star] Nina Hartley, 'Culturally it's OK for Jews to act and for WASPs its different ... Plus, they get to have sex with all these beautiful blonde women ... Where else are you going to get a succession of shiksas [non-Jewish women] to bed you down?'"

Of Fraud and Sex.com. The Industry Standard, November 29, 2000

"Sex.com is one of the more lucrative properties on the Web. InternetNews cited 'some industry experts' as estimating its worth at $250 million. Reuters went with a guesstimate by 'lawyers' of $100 million, and added that court documents indicate that the site's former owner, Stephen Cohen, who had been running the site since 1995, took home $17 million in salary and holds stock options worth $100 million.

In the court case, filed in 1998, Gary Kremen accused Stephen Cohen of stealing the domain name that he, Kremen, had first registered in 1994. Cohen, who all the stories noted has done prison time for fraud, allegedly forged a letter that persuaded Network Solutions (dossier) to transfer the name to him in 1995. Cohen then built sex.com into a destination that attracts 25 million visitors a day, according to Reuters.

All the reporters noted that the judge had ordered Cohen to pay $25 million into a court-controlled fund until damages (if any) are determined, because the court feared that Cohen was hiding his assets offshore."

[Stephen Cohen should not be confused with BENJAMIN Cohen, of England, who, at 18 years of age, became a millionaire with the founding of JewishNet and has since founded cyberbritain (featuring huntforporn.co.uk and dotadults.com).

As mere sampling, other premiere Jewish Internet porn moguls include Seattle-based Seth Warshavsky, called "the Bill Gates of Smut" by the Los Angeles Times [Ehrman, M. 6-13-99, p. 26; read The Prince of Porn at wired.com] ; Jonathan Silverstein, the president of Cybererotica [Chairman: Ron Levi]; Peter Asher, the president of Vivid Entertainment Group (the "world's leading producer of adult films and videos" -- founded by Steven Hirsch and David James; read about the VEG porn team in Silicone Valley: When Porn Goes Public at the Industry Standard); and Danni Ashe, one of the major women entrepreneurs in the online porn field -- read the The Brains Behind the Boobs, at wired.com]

The Sordid Saga of Sex.com. wired.com, April 15, 1999

"Never mind the porn on Sex.com. If even half the allegations that [Gary] Kremen makes are true, the tale behind Sex.com is the most sordid in the short history of the Internet economy

[Stephen] Cohen was convicted in 1991 for posing as a lawyer in a bankruptcy court in a scheme to bilk an elderly woman's creditors out of $200,000. According to court records, Cohen assumed the identity of several attorneys, forged phony deeds and cashier's checks, and attempted to hide the woman's assets. Cohen was sentenced to 46 months. It was his second conviction. In 1975, he was found guilty of grand theft and check kiting ... Within eight months of his prison release, Cohen controlled the Sex.com domain name.

Cohen allegedly pulled off of the domain heist with a forged letter, dated 15 October 1995, to Network Solutions, the Net's registrar ... In an early interview, before Kremen raised his allegations, Cohen claimed that he had been using the Sex.com name since 1979, as part of The French Connection, an electronic bulletin board he founded for 'swingers, nudist camps, and alternative lifestyles.' BBSs were the primary source of digital porn before the Web. Back then, he said, Sex.com stood for 'Sex Communications ...

By the late '80s, Cohen had set up a real-world meeting place for French Connection swingers at a home in Orange County, California. Hundreds of couples met at 'The Club' on Friday and Saturday nights to swap partners. After neighbors complained, police arrested Cohen in 1990 on charges of operating a sex club in a residential zone. Cohen moved The Club elsewhere, and the charges were dropped ...

In late 1995, with Kremen temporarily stymied in his attempts to regain the domain, Cohen and four Orange County entrepreneurs dreamed up big plans for Sex.com. The grandest plan had little to do with the Internet. In January 1996, the group unveiled its bid to buy a Nevada brothel called Sheri's Ranch and transform it into a $100 million 'adult fantasy resort.' Named Wanaleiya, the Polynesian-themed resort would feature 500 exotic women who 'would not hesitate to see to your comfort and pleasure.'"

Criminal Enterprises: Pornography. Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies, Eastern Kentucky University.

"Of the individuals indicted by the federal government in the MIPORN [Miami Pornography] operation, [Jewish porn mogul] Reuben Sturman was clearly the most important. Sturman presided over his business enterprises from his Sovereign News Company, headquartered in Cleveland.

Sovereign News was housed in a three-story, red-brick building, surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire and protected by the most modern and sophisticated electronic surveillance devices money can buy (Potter, 1986; Satchell, 1979). Sturman controlled pornography distribution warehouses in Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Denver, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Detroit. In addition, he was the principle owner of between 300 and 800 retail pornography stores around the country (May and Hosenball, 1981).

Sturman's Sovereign News Empire dominated the pornography industry and created an environment in which smaller operators and their distributors were dependent upon Sovereign News for their survival. A confidential FBI memorandum on the pornography industry said that [Sturman's business practices] have included the strong-arm shakedowns of other dealers, distributors, and suppliers throughout the United States, particularly on the West Coast."

Business Booms in Jail for Our Top Pornographer, Sydney Morning Herald [Australia],  January 30, 1995

"An American criminal, David Sturman, whose father was once the largest distributor of hard-core pornography in the world, has been able to gain a substantial slice of the Australian pornography industry while serving a jail sentence in California. By using Australians to act as owners of his businesses in Sydney and Canberra, Sturman avoided probity checks which are essential in gaining a licence to operate. Two years ago, Sturman and his American partner, Mark Franks, set up a group of companies to control the importation, sale and distribution of pornographic videos from outlets such as the Adam and Eve shop in Canberra."

Ruined Reps. Salon.com, June 7, 2000

"Israeli porn producers are hiring actors who look like Egyptian stars ... According to the Nasserist Al-Arabi weekly publication ... film producers are tracking down actors who look like current Egyptian stars, and using them to shoot porn flicks in Israel. The films are then imported to Egypt and screened for paying customers.

Appeal is broad for such materials, because Egyptian cinema is the most popular in the Middle East. Al-Arabi said the goal of the porn films was to 'tarnish the reputation of Egyptian film stars.' The original actors are, of course, not pleased with the alternative personas that have been handed to them ... Yusra Alawi told reporters she is asking her attorney to obtain copies of the films and to pursue legal action against those responsible."

Ron Jeremy: Porn Buddha. Austin Arts Downtown, May-June 2001

"People call Jeremy addicted (to food), a tightwad, a clown, a spotlight hound and a man who can maintain an erection longer than any man in pornography. He claims not to use Viagra. He was born Ron Hyatt into a Jewish family who don't seem too put off by his ultimate career choice, although after the first porn film, his dad told Ron not to use his last name ... We are talking about a man who can count a film called Blow it Out Your Ass, as a typical title among the 1600 or so films he has appeared in."

Meet A Nice Jewish Porn Star Ron Jeremy looks more like your Uncle Moe than a sex god, By Naomi Pfefferman, Jewsweek

"'I‘m just a nice Jewish boy with one vice,' says Queens native Ron Jeremy. 'Twenty-three years of porn films.' Scott J. Gill’s documentary 'Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy,' which opens in select cities this month, chronicles the life and times of the unlikeliest Jew in the world — and the unlikeliest porn star.

The 48-year-old Jeremy dotes on his family. They dote on him. His dad's a physicist. His brother's a Harvard-educated executive. Most everyone else in the family has at least a master's degree. Jeremy earned his master's in special education from Queens College in part to help his disabled mother.

He looks more like your Uncle Moe than a sex god. But while he’s not so easy on the eyes (he’s nicknamed 'The Hedgehog' because he’s short, fat and hairy), he’s been paid huge sums to bed more gorgeous women than James Bond. Gill’s hilarious film — in which Jeremy fans jubilantly declare, 'He’s Jewish!' — stands apart from other movies on the porn biz that have emerged in the past decade ... At its core, the flick poses the question, 'How did a hammy kid from Flushing become the most recognized male figure in adult film?'

Answers begin to emerge when the documentary shows home movies of the young Jeremy (born Ron Jeremy Hyatt) mugging for the camera while opening Chanukah presents. 'He’s always been a performer,' says his sister. 'From the time he was in elementary school ... he always wanted to be the center of attention' ...

His family wasn’t thrilled with his career choice, but staunchly supported his First Amendment rights when a film-related bust forced him to fight in court (it was illegal then to film porn in Los Angeles). 'Jewish families tend to be more liberal than Christian ones,' says the performer, citing the preponderance of Jewish men in porn. 'They aren’t obsessed by the fear of the devil or going to hell' ...

The garrulous Jeremy — who hopes to wed his girlfriend in a synagogue and raise their kids Jewish — is momentarily silent when asked how he’d feel if he had a daughter who wanted to do porn."

Rebel without Clothes. New Haven Advocate.

"To many people, Nina Hartley would appear to be the embodiment of contradiction: a feminist who's also a veteran porn star and damn proud of it. Further confounding stereotypes, she's a public speaker as comfortable in a college lecture hall as on a strip club stage and a politically aware progressive -- a 'third-generation socialist,' she called herself in a wide-ranging 1989 interview in Shmate, a now-defunct progressive Jewish journal.

She's a 1985 graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.S. in nursing. Magna cum laude, at that. She entered the sex business in 1982, working as a stripper at a San Francisco club while she was in college. Hartley, who estimates she has appeared in 360 movies or videos, made her first film in 1984 ... Hartley's emergence as one of porn's top stars coincided with a burgeoning public debate over the medium ...

The opinionated and articulate Hartley entered the fray and has become the foremost spokesperson for women working in the porn industry.

Brazilian Police Stake Out Diplomat Accused of Running Kiddie-Porn Ring.

Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2000

"Brazilian police continued to surround the Israeli consulate in Rio de Janeiro in the belief that Israeli vice-consul in Rio Aryeh Scher, wanted on suspicion of running a child pornography ring, had taken refuge there.

However Foreign Ministry officials said Scher has been en route to Israel for the past two days. Scher, who was at one point consul-general in Rio, was declared a fugitive by Brazilian authorities after a search of his apartment on Tuesday yielded what police officials described as evidence it was used for the manufacture of pornographic material, some of them involving underage girls ...

Brazilian authorities notified the Israeli embassy of plans to revoke Scher's diplomatic immunity on Tuesday, prior to the search. By the time police were able to obtain a warrant to search Scher's penthouse, the vice-consul was already on his way back to Israel, where he will face a Foreign Ministry inquiry ...

The investigation that culminated in the search of Scher's apartment began when a 17-year-old girl accused Georges Schteinberg, a 40-year-old Hebrew teacher of using her as a model in pornographic pictures and of distributing them on the Internet. Photographs of nude minors posed on a car with diplomatic plates were discovered in a search of Schteinberg's residence earlier in the week, in addition to massive quantities of pornographic material. Police then traced the car in the pictures back to Scher."

Brother Posts Bail in Porn Case, San Ramon Valley Times, January 5, 2002

"FEDERAL OFFICIALS SUSPECT A WALNUT CREEK MAN OF BEING A MAJOR DISTRIBUTOR OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY FROM RUSSIA.

A Walnut Creek man accused of being the 'best customer' of Russian child pornography kingpins is now himself suspected of being a 'major distributor' of illegal sexual materials, federal officials disclosed Friday.

As the investigation of Seth Bekenstein, 39, continues to evolve, authorities are diving deeper into the world of a man they believe trafficked in vast amounts of kiddie porn, said Elise Becker, an assistant U.S. attorney. 'At this time, we do actually think he is a major distributor both in the United States and abroad,' Becker told Magistrate Wayne Brazil during a bail hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Oakland. 'This has been his life for the past year.'"

Jewish Porn, World Union of Jewish Students

"After things like Jewish calendar, Jewish singles, Jewish dating, and Jewish festivals comes 'Jewish porn' in the list of top search keywords that GoTo.com provide. That is to say that 1000s of people are searching for Jewish porn. Why? ... Sam Stern is a guy. A guy who went on Young Judea year course in the early 90s. He lives in LA, spends his time making porn movies starring himself, and selling them on E-Bay. The guy is quite philosophical about his calling. Talks a lot about the strangeness of making porn on Yom Kippur, bits of guilt in the background, that sort of thing. Although mostly it really does seem that he is just kind of glad that he can make a living and have sex with porn stars. So, for circumcised hard-core porn, with a Jew in, find Sam."

Former N.J. Rabbi Admits Having Child Pornography, Newsday, February 26, 2002

"The former rabbi of a Morris County synagogue pleaded guilty Tuesday to having child pornography on his temple computer. Juda Mintz Jr., who now lives in Georgia, faces 27 to 33 months in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 ...

Mintz admitted that at that time he had at least 10 computer files containing photographs of minors engaging in sexual activity, including some images of children under 12. The synagogue said it cooperated with authorities. 'We deplore his actions and, indeed, relieved him of his duties because of them,' according to a statement released by synagogue vice president Jonathan Ramsfelder. 'During his tenure, (Rabbi Mintz) was viewed by many congregants as a warm, generous and dynamic rabbi and teacher. This was a loss.'"

Former Little League Administrator Faces Child Porn Charges, KFWB, March 6, 2002

"A former Long Beach Little League administrator is facing federal child pornography charges, according to the FBI. Signal Hill police and FBI agents arrested Laurent Blumenthal Tuesday after he was indicted on charges of possession of child pornography. Court documents allege the 65-year-old placed a hidden camera in his bathroom to secretly record young boys. The allegations were in an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant executed at Blumenthal's Signal Hill home on Jan. 14. Investigators also seized a computer at Blumenthal's home which allegedly had child pornography on the hard drive, according to the FBI."

Czechs Nix Plan to Shoot Porn Film at the Site of Terezin Transit Camp, JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), March 25, 2002

"Czech officials have quashed plans to shoot scenes from a porno film at the former wartime transit camp of Terezin. Officials banned the use of video cameras at Terezin after reports that a porn movie would be shot there.

'I did the only thing I could do,' Jan Munk, director of a monument to Terezin victims, said. Munk´s move came after the Czech tabloid Super reported Saturday that the film, starring top Czech porn star Robert Rosenberg, who is also the film´s producer, is set at the end of World War II and will tell the story of how women at the camp were raped by Nazis.

The ban might be too late, however, since Rosenberg has already filmed some parts of the camp. The paper that printed the original article on the film, which also printed a collage of a semi-naked woman posing in front of a picture of Terezin, said the film's working title is 'How it Was.'"

Porn Upsets Palestinians, The Advertiser, March 31, 2002

"Porn movies and programs in Hebrew are being broadcast by Israeli troops who have taken over three Palestinian television stations of Ramallah, irate residents of the besieged West Bank town have told AFP. The offices of three local television and radio stations were occupied by soldiers yesterday morning, a few hours after tanks and hundreds of troops stormed the town in Israel's biggest offensive against the Palestinian Authority and its leader Yasser Arafat.

The soldiers started broadcasting the porn clips -- considered extremely offensive by most Muslims -- intermittently this afternoon from the Al-Watan, Ammwaj, and Al-Sharaq channels, the residents said. 'The pornographic movies started on Al-Watan television at around 3:30 pm,' one 34-year-old Palestinian mother named Reema told AFP. 'I have six children at home, they have nowhere to go with what is going on here and can't even watch TV,' she said angrily. 'It's not healthy really. I think the Israelis want to mess with our young men's heads,' she said.

Anita, a 52-year-old mother of three children, complained about "the deliberate psychological damage caused by these broadcast.'. 'I am furious, these are the people who are shooting at us that also play this disgusting trick on us,' she said. 'We are desperate for news and constantly flipping channels and get these terrible pictures instead,' adding that videos of the intifada were also shown backwards with 'ideal terrorism' written in red across the screen. 'Luckily, there is no electricity in half of Ramallah,' she said from her house in east Jerusalem where the channels are also available.

A fourth local station, whose premises were not seized by the army, ran a written message across its screen letting people know it was the Israelis who were behind the graphic scenes. 'Anything currently shown on Al-Watan and other local TV channels has nothing to do with Palestinian programs but is being broadcast by the Israeli occupation forces, we urge parents to take precautions,' the message said. The Israeli military denied that it had anything to do with the pornographic programming and instead blamed the Palestinian leaders."

How David Asimov, the Biggest Child Porn Processor in California Skated Away from Federal Prison with a Little Help from His Friends, News Making News, March 29, 2001

"David Asimov, of Living Oak Court, Bennett Ridge, Santa Rosa, the son of the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, was sentenced on March 28, 2001 to six months' home detention with electronic monitoring and three years federal probation for possessing child pornography.

 U.S. District Court Judge Maxine M. Chesney sentenced Asimov after reviewing a series of sealed psychiatric reports, one of which was ordered by the court. Asimov who was charged with four federal counts of possession of child pornography with each count carrying a five year sentence, pled guilty to two counts in a plea bargain deal.

There was no forfeiture of any of Asimov's assets in this case, despite his owning a home in Santa Rosa purchased in 1996 for $375,000, and despite his receiving $3,000 per month from his father's estate.

How did Asimov, who possessed one of the largest stashes of pornography in California, skate away from federal prison? A look at the players yields the answer. Asimov's child porn stash was so big many child victims and perpetrators would have taken a fall, had Asimov been zealously prosecuted at trial."

Two actors face child porn charges, Salon.com, Nov. 16, 2002

"A year-old pornography investigation has led to the filing of criminal charges against two Hollywood actors: Paul Reubens, best known as Pee-wee Herman, and veteran character actor Jeffrey Jones of 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.'

Reubens was charged with one misdemeanor count of possessing materials depicting children under the age of 18 engaged in sexual conduct, said Ana Garcia, a spokeswoman with the City Attorney's office. He surrendered to authorities Friday and was released on $20,000 bail ... Reubens, 50, and Jones, 56, are acquaintances and both cases stem from the same police investigation, said Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. ...

Reubens pleaded no contest to an indecent exposure charge in 1991 after he was arrested in Sarasota, Fla., for allegedly exposing himself in a movie theater. After that plea, Reubens' long-running 'Pee-wee Herman Show' was canceled and his star faded, although he has had supporting roles in a number of films since, including 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Blow.'"

Jewish Films To Watch at Sundance, [Jewish] Forward, January 17, 2003

"Andrew Jarecki brings to this year's Sundance [Film Festival] a new kind of legend — an indie who has already made a million ($388 million, to be exact, which is what AOL paid for his company, Moviefone, in 1999, keeping him on as CEO). The multitalented mogul, who has also penned and performed songs for the WB's late, lamented 'Felicity,' is showing his documentary 'Capturing the Friedmans,' one of several offerings topping the list of must-see films with Jewish themes ...

Buzz for 'Friedmans' is strong. In 1987, New York Newsday broke the story of Arnold Friedman, an upper-middle-class high school teacher from Great Neck, Long Island, who was arrested as part of a federal sting operation against mail-order pornography. Friedman's wife ran a childcare center from their home; Friedman was also a buyer of child pornography. As detailed in 'Capturing the Friedmans,' during the arrest agents began to suspect that children who came to the Friedmans' home for day care and after-school computer classes were being abused. Jarecki was given surprising access to the family's home videos, which he uses to sort through the various versions of the truth regarding the charges.

The Lady Is a Pornographer. Salon.com, June 26, 2000

""I'm the kink controller here at Click + Drag, which means I have to keep people in line,' says the 40-year-old [Abby] Ehmann. 'I make sure that nothing gets out of control -- just kinky' ... Ehmann has many titles in addition to kink controller. She is the 'editrix' of Extreme Fetish magazine -- dubbed 'The best alternative sex publication in New York' by TimeOut magazine. She is on the board of directors of Feminists for Free Expression, an organization that fights restrictions on free speech, and she is a writer and a performer. But for all her roles, Ehmann has only one mission: to satisfy the appetites of New Yorkers who are not sated by polite and sterile living ... She started a fanzine called Porn Free with the idea of giving away pornography. 'I thought, hey, there's a niche that no one is filling. Of course, it wasn't very profitable.' Ehmann gave up Porn Free after being approached in 1997 by D&L Enterprises, a publishing company, to be the editor of a fetish magazine. It was Ehmann's goal to create a sex publication that would provide fetishists with content suited to their needs. Each monthly issue of Extreme Fetish has a particular theme, such as latex, shoe fetishes or musclebound divas."

The Law of Return [from Israel: Whose Country Is It Anyway?, by well-known Jewish lesbian feminist Andrea Dworkin, 1990 [posted here at igc.org]

"You have to see it to believe it and even seeing it might not help. I've been sent it over the years by feminists in Israel--I had seen it--I didn't really believe it. Unlike in the United States, pornography is not an industry. You find it in mainstream magazines and advertising. It is mostly about the Holocaust. In it, Jewish women are sexualized as Holocaust victims for Jewish men to masturbate over.

Well, would you believe it, even if you saw it? Israeli women call it 'Holocaust pornography.' The themes are fire, gas, trains, emaciation, death ... . Monitin is a left-liberal slick monthly for the intelligentsia and upper class. It has high productions and aesthetic values. Israel's most distinguished writers and intellectuals publish in it. Judith Antonelli in The Jewish Advocate reported that Monitin 'contains the most sexually violent images. Photos abound of women sprawled out upside-down as if they have just been attacked.'

Or, in a magazine for women that is not unlike Ladies' Home Journal, there is a photograph of a woman tied to a chair with heavy rope. Her shirt is torn off her shoulders and upper chest but her arms are tied up against her so that only the fleshy part of the upper breasts is exposed. She is wearing pants--they are wet. A man, fully dressed, standing next to her, is throwing beer in her face. In the United States, such photographs of women are found in bondage magazines. For purists, there is an Israeli pornography magazine. The issue I saw had a front-page headline that read: ORGY AT YAD VASHEM. Yad Vashem is the memorial in Jerusalem to the victims of the Holocaust. Under the headline, there was a photograph of a man sexually entangled with several women. What does this mean--other than that if you are a Jewish woman you don't run to Israel, you run from it?"

Desmond embroiled in £8m tax wrangle, Media Guardian (UK), September 24, 2002

"Richard Desmond [also Jewish], the owner of Express Newspapers, is in dispute with the inland revenue over a £8m tax bill. His argument with the taxman began after a 1993 business deal when United Newspapers agreed to buy 10 of his magazines, resulting in a £12m windfall for the pornography publisher ... The Money Programme revelations could not come at a worse time for Mr Desmond, who is desperately trying to shake off his 'porn baron' tag. Only 10 days ago he went on the BBC's Ten O'Clock News to protest against the use of the word 'pornographer'. Demonstrating for the first time he is embarrassed by the P-word, Mr Desmond said of his critics: 'They use the word pornography... they use all sorts of nasty words.' Mr Desmond, who, according to his arch-rival David Sullivan, owns 50 top shelf titles and three porn TV channels, carried on: 'We don't publish pornography, we publish adult magazines.' He has been trying to sell his porn empire for the last two years but there have been no takers. The Money Programme confirms MediaGuardian.co.uk reports that Mr Desmond was also spurred into action by a Guardian investigation into one of his pornography websites that offered live lesbian sex as well as other images portraying pregnant women and women as old as 78. Deric Botham, who ran Mr Desmond's Fantasy Channel for five years, explained how within 24 hours of the article appearing he 'decimated' the site to prevent further media opporobrium."

Study Archive of Jewish Pornographers in Modern Societies

http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-pornography-archive.html

Towering Men and Stout-Hearted Sisters. Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2000
[Book review of Jewish scholar Jay Gertzman's Bookleggers an Smuthounds]
"A great many of the publishers and peddlers of what was variously called flagitious, pornographic, or erotic literature were Jews, and most of those were German Jews who had learned the printing trades in the old country. This fact of course fed right into the animosity of anti-smut crusaders who constantly decried the 'foreign, radical, corrupting' character of the smut peddlers. The main protagonists in this battle for the soul, if not the groin, of America were the patrician John Saxton Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, and Samuel Roth, a writer, poet and genuine man of letters and an equally authentic purveyor of sleaze. Roth, for example, not only published (and often pirated) works by Lawrence, Joyce, Miller and legitimate classics, but also printed and peddled flip books, pornographic playing cards, albums of 'French postcards' and the vulgarities known as 'Tijuana Bibles.' Just to compound matters, during his various stints in prison Roth wrote works like Jews Must Live, a book of rabid anti-Jewish sentiment that Gertzman says still circulates in antisemitic circles today ... Gertzman himself acknowledges towards the end of his book that his uncle once ran the most notorious 'dirty bookshop' in Philadelphia. For that matter, Sam Roth's grandson is none other than Prof. James Kugel, the eminent Bible scholar at Harvard University. If there's a more complicated and surprising tribe on earth, I've yet to hear about it."

Porners Must Live. San Francisco Bay Guardian, October 25, 2000
"The story of the Web's most influential pornophile is nearly unbelievable: the son of an Australian Christian evangelist, Ford converted to Orthodox Judaism in 1993 – a 'porn-again Jew' in Fordspeak – under the theological influence of right-wing Jewish talk-radio demagogue Dennis Prager (whose Web site Ford also runs). As a result, Ford's site is not really a porn site at all. It's a daily chronicle of how devout Judaism and devout pornology play themselves out in one man's endless public arguments with himself. The basic premise: how can someone devote his professional life to an industry he believes is, in Ford's own words, 'profoundly destructive and hence immoral ... another form of rebellion against God.' Ford is a religious Jew, not a cultural one, yet it is cultural Jews – 'non-Jewish Jews,' he calls them – with whom Ford's site is most invested, specifically all those non-Jewish Jews who get it on and buy and sell the getting-it-on in the porn industry. Like all of his polemics, Ford's essay on these Jews is a rambling collage of theories, interviews, and uncited historical references that never really coalesce into an identifiable argument. Ford is less of an opinion maker and more of an archivist-chronicler, his agenda always buried beneath layers of deferral and ambiguity. In the piece, Ford turns the Jews-run-Hollywood riff into a Jews-run-porn riff, listing off the secret Hebraic roots of all the key players – Randy 'Andy Abrams' West, Barbara 'Stacy Mitnick' Dare. He also feeds the age-old anti-Semitic connection that Hitler turned into grounds for genocide in Mein Kampf – Jews as dirty, parasitic merchants of smut, disease, and moral pollution – by emphasizing the high number of Jewish porn publishers throughout smut's history."

Jews [in pornography]. lukeford.com [See above link], 2001
"Secular Jews play a disproportionate role throughout the sex industry ... Jews accounted for most of the leading male [pornography] performers of the 1970s and '80s ... If the Torah [Pentateutch] command Jews 'to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,' and Judaism strongly opposes porn, why do Jews dominate porn? ... Pornographer Seymore Butts attributes the large number of Jews in porn to the desire for profits. Jews gravitate towards money ... 'I have not yet met a Jewish guy who wasn't horny as a rabbit,' says [Jewish porn star] Nina Hartley, 'Culturally it's OK for Jews to act and for WASPs its different ... Plus, they get to have sex with all these beautiful blonde women ... Where else are you going to get a succession of shiksas [non-Jewish women] to bed you down?'"

Of Fraud and Sex.com. The Industry Standard, November 29, 2000
"Sex.com is one of the more lucrative properties on the Web. InternetNews cited 'some industry experts' as estimating its worth at $250 million. Reuters went with a guesstimate by 'lawyers' of $100 million, and added that court documents indicate that the site's former owner, Stephen Cohen, who had been running the site since 1995, took home $17 million in salary and holds stock options worth $100 million. In the court case, filed in 1998, Gary Kremen accused Stephen Cohen of stealing the domain name that he, Kremen, had first registered in 1994. Cohen, who all the stories noted has done prison time for fraud, allegedly forged a letter that persuaded Network Solutions (dossier) to transfer the name to him in 1995. Cohen then built sex.com into a destination that attracts 25 million visitors a day, according to Reuters. All the reporters noted that the judge had ordered Cohen to pay $25 million into a court-controlled fund until damages (if any) are determined, because the court feared that Cohen was hiding his assets offshore." [Stephen Cohen should not be confused with BENJAMIN Cohen, of England, who, at 18 years of age, became a millionaire with the founding of JewishNet and has since founded cyberbritain (featuring huntforporn.co.uk and dotadults.com). As mere sampling, other premiere Jewish Internet porn moguls include Seattle-based Seth Warshavsky, called "the Bill Gates of Smut" by the Los Angeles Times [Ehrman, M. 6-13-99, p. 26; read The Prince of Porn at wired.com] ; Jonathan Silverstein, the president of Cybererotica [Chairman: Ron Levi]; Peter Asher, the president of Vivid Entertainment Group (the "world's leading producer of adult films and videos" -- founded by Steven Hirsch and David James; read about the VEG porn team in Silicone Valley: When Porn Goes Public at the Industry Standard); and Danni Ashe, one of the major women entrepreneurs in the online porn field -- read the The Brains Behind the Boobs, at wired.com]

Windfall is Anticipated for Winner of Sex.com.
Mercury News, December 2, 2000
"When Gary Kremen bought the domain name sex.com in 1994, he didn't plan on being a purveyor of pornography. 'I thought it might be cool,'' he said. 'Maybe I'd get to meet the Dr. Ruths [Dr. Ruth is also Jewish] of the world.' He considered penning an advice column on what women should know about men. But he didn't get around to doing anything with the site. And a year later, it was taken over by a man named Stephen Cohen. For the past several years, the two men have been locked in a legal battle over the site -- a battle that ended Monday when a San Jose federal judge stripped ownership of the choice Web address from Cohen, ruling that he most likely stole the rights to the domain name from Kremen. Cohen, who turned the site into a popular portal to scores of X-rated Web sites, also was ordered to place $25 million into a federal court account until the litigation is completed. Kremen argued in court that the name was stolen from him ... As for the future of sex.com, Kremen hopes to change the site into something classier, focusing more on erotica than pornography."

The Sordid Saga of Sex.com. wired.com, April 15, 1999
"Never mind the porn on Sex.com. If even half the allegations that [Gary] Kremen makes are true, the tale behind Sex.com is the most sordid in the short history of the Internet economy ... [Stephen] Cohen was convicted in 1991 for posing as a lawyer in a bankruptcy court in a scheme to bilk an elderly woman's creditors out of $200,000. According to court records, Cohen assumed the identity of several attorneys, forged phony deeds and cashier's checks, and attempted to hide the woman's assets. Cohen was sentenced to 46 months. It was his second conviction. In 1975, he was found guilty of grand theft and check kiting ... Within eight months of his prison release, Cohen controlled the Sex.com domain name. Cohen allegedly pulled off of the domain heist with a forged letter, dated 15 October 1995, to Network Solutions, the Net's registrar ... In an early interview, before Kremen raised his allegations, Cohen claimed that he had been using the Sex.com name since 1979, as part of The French Connection, an electronic bulletin board he founded for 'swingers, nudist camps, and alternative lifestyles.' BBSs were the primary source of digital porn before the Web. Back then, he said, Sex.com stood for 'Sex Communications ... By the late '80s, Cohen had set up a real-world meeting place for French Connection swingers at a home in Orange County, California. Hundreds of couples met at 'The Club' on Friday and Saturday nights to swap partners. After neighbors complained, police arrested Cohen in 1990 on charges of operating a sex club in a residential zone. Cohen moved The Club elsewhere, and the charges were dropped ... In late 1995, with Kremen temporarily stymied in his attempts to regain the domain, Cohen and four Orange County entrepreneurs dreamed up big plans for Sex.com. The grandest plan had little to do with the Internet. In January 1996, the group unveiled its bid to buy a Nevada brothel called Sheri's Ranch and transform it into a $100 million 'adult fantasy resort.' Named Wanaleiya, the Polynesian-themed resort would feature 500 exotic women who 'would not hesitate to see to your comfort and pleasure.'"

Brazilian Jewry -- A Concise History. JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Genealogy.
"We now come of a very sordid period in Jewish history. Late in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews controlled the trade in white slavery, which is a polite way of saying prostitution. And they did so worldwide. Reputable historians claim Jews ran brothels in Shanghai, India, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and New York City ... One unfortunate result of Jewish-controlled white slavery was that anti-semites in Europe used the information to paint all Jews as unworthy, as criminals, and deserving of expulsion from their country. Fortunately, Jewish communities that had been initially timid in dealing with this issue eventually rallied and worked throughout the world to stamp out this blemish, finally succeeding. So much so that today many Jews have not heard of this shameful episode in Jewish history."

Rape By Any Name. Citizens' Commission on Human Rights
"Dr. Jules Masserman, past president of the American Psychiatry Association, sexually assaulted four of his female patients during drug-induced sleep ... Although only ten percent of psychiatrists admit to sexually abusing patients, interestingly, 65 percent say new patients tell them of being abused sexually by their former psychiatrist." ["That vast apparative of putative concern, psychiatry, is largely a Jewish monopoly." -- Kahn, Roger. The Passionate People, William Morris, Inc., 1968, p. 53 / "All over the world, Jews are drawn to the profession of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy. The 1990 roster of the International Psychoanalytical Association reads like the membership list of a synagogue." -- Earl Hopper, Psychotherapy and the 'Jewish Experience.' European Judaism, Spring 1996, p. 17-25 / "An area of medicine which Jews have made almost their own is psychiatry, though it is perhaps still too early to say whether it constitutes a positive advance in human welfare." -- Chaim Bermant, The Jews, Times Mirror, 1977, p. 119]  

Porn Figure Sturman Dies. Las Vegas Review-Journal, October 29, 1997
"[Jewish] Pornography czar Reuben Sturman, who was the focus of a high-profile 1992 obscenity case in Las Vegas, died Monday at a federal prison in Kentucky, where he was serving terms for tax fraud in Cleveland and extortion in Chicago ... During his first trial in Las Vegas on obscenity and racketeering charges that ended in a mistrial in October 1991, news accounts described a jovial Sturman who laughed as jurors watched films of men and women having sex with animals ... In the 1980s, Sturman was identified by the Justice Department as the No. 1 distributor of hard-core pornography."

Criminal Enterprises: Pornography.
Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies, Eastern Kentucky University.
"Of the individuals indicted by the federal government in the MIPORN [Miami Pornography] operation, [Jewish porn mogul] Reuben Sturman was clearly the most important. Sturman presided over his business enterprises from his Sovereign News Company, headquartered in Cleveland. Sovereign News was housed in a three-story, red-brick building, surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire and protected by the most modern and sophisticated electronic surveillance devices money can buy (Potter, 1986; Satchell, 1979). Sturman controlled pornography distribution warehouses in Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Denver, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Detroit. In addition, he was the principle owner of between 300 and 800 retail pornography stores around the country (May and Hosenball, 1981). Sturman's Sovereign News Empire dominated the pornography industry and created an environment in which smaller operators and their distributors were dependent upon Sovereign News for their survival. A confidential FBI memorandum on the pornography industry said that [Sturman's business practices] have included the strong-arm shakedowns of other dealers, distributors, and suppliers throughout the United States, particularly on the West Coast."

Business Booms in Jail for Our Top Pornographer, Sydney Morning Herald [Australia], [posted at lukeford.com], January 30, 1995
"An American criminal, David Sturman, whose father was once the largest distributor of hard-core pornography in the world, has been able to gain a substantial slice of the Australian pornography industry while serving a jail sentence in California. By using Australians to act as owners of his businesses in Sydney and Canberra, Sturman avoided probity checks which are essential in gaining a licence to operate. Two years ago, Sturman and his American partner, Mark Franks, set up a group of companies to control the importation, sale and distribution of pornographic videos from outlets such as the Adam and Eve shop in Canberra."

Hackers Put Pornography on Hamas Web Site.
FreeRepublic.com (from Reuters), March 26, 2001
"Hackers invaded the Internet site of the Muslim militant group Hamas to make it show pornography on Tuesday, after the fundamentalist organization claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed three Israelis. Web surfers trying to access www.hamas.org were re-routed automatically to a pay-for-view pornographic site offering a fare ranging from 'kinky co-eds' to 'Latina fetish.' Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the political wing of Hamas, accused Israeli intelligence of being behind what appeared to be the latest attack in an Israeli-Arab cyberwar on the sidelines of a five-month-old Palestinian uprising."

Ruined Reps. Salon.com, June 7, 2000
"Israeli porn producers are hiring actors who look like Egyptian stars ... According to the Nasserist Al-Arabi weekly publication ... film producers are tracking down actors who look like current Egyptian stars, and using them to shoot porn flicks in Israel. The films are then imported to Egypt and screened for paying customers. Appeal is broad for such materials, because Egyptian cinema is the most popular in the Middle East. Al-Arabi said the goal of the porn films was to 'tarnish the reputation of Egyptian film stars.' The original actors are, of course, not pleased with the alternative personas that have been handed to them ... Yusra Alawi told reporters she is asking her attorney to obtain copies of the films and to pursue legal action against those responsible."

Establishing Boundaries. High Profile Cases Refocus Attention on Sexual Misconduct.
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. December 15, 2000
"For those who look up to the American Jewish clergy, it has not been a good year. Last week, one of the Reform movements most prominent rabbis was suspended from the movement's rabbinical association for past sexual misconduct ... The news about [Rabbi Sheldon] Zimmerman came on the heels of several other widely publicized incidents involving Jewish clergy."

Months After HUC Resignation, Zimmerman Hired By Birthright,
JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), April 5, 2001
"A rabbi recently suspended from the Reform movement's rabbinic organization because of sexual impropriety has been hired to a top position by a program that sends thousands of young Jews on free trips to Israel. Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, who resigned as president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in December, will become executive vice president of Birthright Israel USA, Inc., based in New York. He was recruited for the position by Michael Steinhardt, the hedge fund manager-turned-philanthropist who co-founded the Birthright program. Zimmerman's hire is raising some eyebrows in the Jewish community, though many leading figures praised the appointment ... Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of the feminist Jewish magazine Lilith, said, 'Although the specific nature of Zimmerman's actions have not been made public,' his hire 'seems to repeat a pattern in Jewish life where male rabbis known to have transgressive behaviors in their past have not often suffered professionally for it.' The appointment comes on the heels of another controversy surrounding the program: the fact that two of Birthright's top lay leaders wrote pardon letters on behalf of [fugitive] financier Marc Rich, who gave $5 million to the organization."

Sexual Abuse by Rabbis. Lilith [Jewish Womens' Magazine] No date.
"The denials and cover-ups by religious authorities in the case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner closely parallel a report Lilith Magazine has published, investigating accusations of sexual misconduct by the rabbi and popular singer Shlomo Carlebach. Lilith, the independent Jewish women's magazine, exposed 'The Paradoxical Legacy' of the late Rabbi Carlebach, known around the world for his neo-Chassidic spirituality, his charm and his music. Like Lanner's, Carlebach's alleged sexual misconduct was denied, ignored and covered up by his partisans. And like the Jewish Week's editor, Lilith's staff was beseeched not to publish, for fear that the allegations brought against Carlebach would undo all the ostensible good he had done." NOTE: Shlomo Carlebach didn't make the online journal Jewsweek's "Most Influential Jews in America" list, but it still publishes the following at their "Most Influential Jews" introduction page: "Why I Think Reb Shlomo Carlebach Should Be On This List, by David Sacks • Reb Shlomo is one the 50 most influential Jews, because he blazed a new path in serving G-d, thereby transforming the way Jews approach their spirituality today. The awareness that Judaism is spiritual is revolutionary enough. But most thought that aspect was the domain of the Hassidim only. Through Reb Shlomo’s melodies, and the Torahs he rescued from the vanished worlds of Kotzk, and Ishbitz, of Belz, Breslov, Karlin and Riminov (to name but a few) Jews from across the entire spectrum of religious observance are realizing that a Jew’s heart has to be on fire in the service of their Creator, that for a Jew to be superficial today is a criminal offense, that it’s not enough to define your Judaism by what you’re against—you have to be for something!"

Rabbi Robert Kirschner Apologizes.
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, October 18, 1996
"[Rabbi Robert] Kirschner was once a rising star in the Reform [Judaism] movement. While still in his 30s, he became the religious leader of one of the two largest synagogues in Northern California and the youngest rabbi ever to head such a sizable Reform congregation. He was destined for a major leadership role in the Reform movement. Some say he would have been on the short list of candidates to succeed Rabbi Alexander Schindler as president of the movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations. But after serving Emanu-El for 11 years, Kirschner suddenly resigned from his pulpit on New Year's Day 1992 amid accusations from three congregants and a temple employee that he had sexually exploited or harassed them. Eight other women later came forward to the temple board to complain about the rabbi's conduct, including members of his congregation and two students from the Graduate Theological Seminary in Berkeley. According to parties involved, at least three of the accusers later reached financial settlements with the temple's insurance company."

Bibliography of Sources on Sexual and Domestic Violence in the Jewish Community. Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse [linked from Women in Judaism, Winter 1999]. A listing of articles -- 25 paper pages long -- that addresses this subject.

No Longer Taboo. Jewsweek [from JTA], August 2001
"Orthodox pedophiles? For years, most people in the Orthodox world assumed their religious way of life and tight-knit communities insulated them from problems rocking the larger world, like sexual abuse. There is still a great deal of resistance to discussing the issue, and a lingering feeling among many victims and advocates that Orthodox institutions are more concerned with protecting the reputations of men accused of sexual abuse than with believing or helping victims ... In the wake of public allegations last year that a high-ranking professional in the Orthodox Union's National Conference of Synagogue Youth had sexually abused more than 20 teen-age girls, sexual abuse has become a household world among centrist Orthodox Jews ... Four years ago, at the request of the Brooklyn District Attorney, Ohel — which already treated Jewish survivors of sexual abuse — created the first- ever treatment program specifically for Orthodox sex offenders. More than 30 people, half referred through the criminal justice system and half through rabbis and Jewish communal leaders, have received evaluation or treatment through the program; more are on a waiting list ... In the aftermath of two publicized cases of pedophilia — one concerning a rabbi teaching at a day school and another concerning a kosher butcher — the Chicago Rabbinical Council recently created a special Beit Din, or rabbinical court, to address sexual abuse ... But there are certain aspects of Orthodox life that make such problems uniquely challenging. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the wall of silence and denial."

Sex Scandal Shakes Ground Under Barak's Government.
The Independent [Great Britain], March 8, 2000
"First corruption allegations, then a defeat in parliament and now a sex scandal. The ground under Ehud Barak, Israel's Prime Minister, seems to be slipping by the day. The latest blow came yesterday, when the Transport Minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, who deputises for Mr Barak in his absence, suspended himself pending an investigation into accusations that he sexually assaulted a female civil servant."

Leading Journalist Arrested on Sex Charge.
Haaretz, [Israeli newspaper], August 15, 2001
"The director-general of the Israel Journalists' Union, Tuvya Sa'ar, has been arrested on suspicion of having intercourse with a minor and coercing her for sexual favors. Sa'ar, 65, a resident of Tel Aviv, was detained two days ago and remanded in custody yesterday ... The charges allege Sa'ar got to know the minor two years through an Internet chat room and they began meeting at his home and in hotel rooms in Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva. Although she was 15 years old at the time - a year below the age of consent - Sa'ar is suspected of having had intercourse with the minor and of using his position as a public figure to cajole and coerce her ... Sa'ar was previously director of Israel TV."

Selling Sex in Israel. Jewsweek, July 18, 2001
"This disturbing story unfolds all too often at the hotline for Migrant Workers, a Tel Aviv agency founded in 1998 to protect the human rights of foreign workers, victims of sex trafficking among them ... Director and co-founder Sigal Rozen, along with the group’s counsel, Nomi Levenkron, were in Washington, D.C. ... In an interview, Rozen called sex trafficking an 'unorganized crime,' based largely on personal networks of immigrants from the Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. ... Those three countries alone accounted for 91 percent of the 474 women arrested in brothels and deported from Israel in 2000, according to figures compiled by hotline volunteers during visits to the Neveh Tirzah women’s prison. These statistics represent only a fraction of the problem. Police spokespersons have set the number of women brought into the country to work in the sex industry at 2,000-3,000 annually, the number of brothels at 250, Rozen said."

Human Rights Abuses Affecting Trafficked Women in Israel's Sex Industry.
Amnesty International, May 18, 2000 [MDE 15/017/2000]
"Although official statistics are not available, it is widely believed that in the past few years thousands of women, including some girls, from FSU [former Soviet Union] countries have been trafficked to Israel to work in the sex industry. Under Israeli laws, virtually all these women are illegal aliens. They are in Israel without work permits or with false documents, which makes them particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses at the hands of traffickers, pimps and others involved in Israel's sex industry. Amnesty International has received many reports of trafficked women being subjected to various human rights abuses, such as enslavement and other restrictions on their liberty, as well as torture, including rape and other forms of sexual abuse ... Amnesty International has received information indicating that in many instances women trafficked from FSU countries are literally bought and sold for large sums of money, often in auctions where they are purchased by the highest bidder. Some are held in debt bondage where they are forced to work to pay off large sums of money. Some women are kidnapped against their will in FSU countires or are lured to Israel under false pretences, and brought to work in the sex industry. Their 'owners' restrict their movements in order to prevent them from leaving. There are many reports of women being imprisoned by their 'owners' in locked houses and apartments and prevented from going out unaccompanied."

Prostitution in the Land of the Maccabees: Trafficking in Women in Israel.
Social Action, [socialaction.com], "a Jewish Online Magazine."
"Today, the prostitute in Tel Aviv is more likely to be named Olga than Rachel, and she's not an Israeli, or in Israel legally. She's one of the more than 2,000 to 2,500 women from former Soviet republics brought into Israel by international traffickers to feed a $450 million-a-year prostitution industry centered around Tel Aviv. The money paid for her body goes to the man she's been sold to. Assault and rape are common ways of keeping 'employees' in line in this business, and the only way a woman will leave Israel's sex industry is if she comes to the attention of the Israeli authorities who will deport her, penniless and traumatized, back to Eastern Europe ... Very rarely, a particularly horrific story will make its way from the Israeli press to American Jewish listserves. When the most recent of these motivated me to get out there and see what I could do to help, I discovered that there is apparently no Jewish organization in the United States or Canada working to raise awareness of trafficking issues in Israel, or bring American Jewish money and influence to bear on the situation. Why should this be an issue for the American Jewish community? After all, most of the women affected are not Jewish."

Factbook on Global Sex Exploitation: Israel.
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
"Traffickers and pimps earned US$50,000 - 100,000 a year from each prostituted woman, resulting in a US$450 million sex industry. ('A modern form of slavery,' The Jerusalem Post, 13 January 1998)
1,500 Russian and Ukrainian trafficked women have been deported from 1995-1997. (Michael Specter, 'Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women,' New York Times, 11 January 1998)
Russian women are bought and sold by pimps in Israel for prices ranging from US$5,000 to $20,000. (Police sources, ''Invisible' Women Shown In Russia's Demographics,' Martina Vandenberg, St. Petersburg Times, 13 October 1997)
A small brothel with ten women can make up to 750,000 shekels a month (US $215,000). (Michael Specter, 'Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women," New York Times, 11 January 1998)
Women trafficked from Eastern Europe, were stripped and sold naked as slaves to Tel Aviv traders for US$500-1,000.
Smuggling, fraudulent documents, collaboration between police and brothel owners are involved. There are routine brutal beatings and sexual abuse. (New York Times 11 January 1998)."

BGU Publishes First Study of local Prostitutes. Jerusalem Post, July 31, 2001
"A first-ever Israeli academic study on the medical and emotional condition of prostitutes has found that most risk HIV and hepatitis C infection through unprotected oral sex, and many suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder ... They reported in private interviews of having an average of 12 clients a day during the week, and during peak days (weekends and holidays) about 30 in a 24-hour period. Two-fifths worked daily except for a single day off a month. They earned a monthly average of only $1,285, and those with family abroad sent most of it to support them, while their personal expenses were paid by the brothel owners."

Ron Jeremy: Porn Buddha. Austin Arts Downtown, May-June 2001
"People call Jeremy addicted (to food), a tightwad, a clown, a spotlight hound and a man who can maintain an erection longer than any man in pornography. He claims not to use Viagra. He was born Ron Hyatt into a Jewish family who don't seem too put off by his ultimate career choice, although after the first porn film, his dad told Ron not to use his last name ... We are talking about a man who can count a film called Blow it Out Your Ass, as a typical title among the 1600 or so films he has appeared in."

Meet A Nice Jewish Porn Star Ron Jeremy looks more like your Uncle Moe than a sex god,
By Naomi Pfefferman, Jewsweek
"'I‘m just a nice Jewish boy with one vice,' says Queens native Ron Jeremy. 'Twenty-three years of porn films.' Scott J. Gill’s documentary 'Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy,' which opens in select cities this month, chronicles the life and times of the unlikeliest Jew in the world — and the unlikeliest porn star. The 48-year-old Jeremy dotes on his family. They dote on him. His dad's a physicist. His brother's a Harvard-educated executive. Most everyone else in the family has at least a master's degree. Jeremy earned his master's in special education from Queens College in part to help his disabled mother. He looks more like your Uncle Moe than a sex god. But while he’s not so easy on the eyes (he’s nicknamed 'The Hedgehog' because he’s short, fat and hairy), he’s been paid huge sums to bed more gorgeous women than James Bond. Gill’s hilarious film — in which Jeremy fans jubilantly declare, 'He’s Jewish!' — stands apart from other movies on the porn biz that have emerged in the past decade ... At its core, the flick poses the question, 'How did a hammy kid from Flushing become the most recognized male figure in adult film?' Answers begin to emerge when the documentary shows home movies of the young Jeremy (born Ron Jeremy Hyatt) mugging for the camera while opening Chanukah presents. 'He’s always been a performer,' says his sister. 'From the time he was in elementary school ... he always wanted to be the center of attention' ... His family wasn’t thrilled with his career choice, but staunchly supported his First Amendment rights when a film-related bust forced him to fight in court (it was illegal then to film porn in Los Angeles). 'Jewish families tend to be more liberal than Christian ones,' says the performer, citing the preponderance of Jewish men in porn. 'They aren’t obsessed by the fear of the devil or going to hell' ... The garrulous Jeremy — who hopes to wed his girlfriend in a synagogue and raise their kids Jewish — is momentarily silent when asked how he’d feel if he had a daughter who wanted to do porn."

Rebel without Clothes. New Haven Advocate.
"To many people, Nina Hartley would appear to be the embodiment of contradiction: a feminist who's also a veteran porn star and damn proud of it. Further confounding stereotypes, she's a public speaker as comfortable in a college lecture hall as on a strip club stage and a politically aware progressive -- a 'third-generation socialist,' she called herself in a wide-ranging 1989 interview in Shmate, a now-defunct progressive Jewish journal. She's a 1985 graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.S. in nursing. Magna cum laude, at that. She entered the sex business in 1982, working as a stripper at a San Francisco club while she was in college. Hartley, who estimates she has appeared in 360 movies or videos, made her first film in 1984 ... Hartley's emergence as one of porn's top stars coincided with a burgeoning public debate over the medium ... The opinionated and articulate Hartley entered the fray and has become the foremost spokesperson for women working in the porn industry.

Dr. Block's Little House of Sexual Horrors. Salon.com, February 18, 1999
"There must be an explanation for the scene taking place just five feet away. A blond, large-breasted woman and a massive black man are fornicating with methodical, casual self-consciousness, like two body-builders pumping iron after an injury. He is on top, banging away unhurriedly, holding himself away from her with two knuckled fists planted on either side of her hips. She doesn't touch him but fidgets with a silver vibrator while preening at the small live audience and the roving, carnivorous camera. The peanut gallery continues with its kibitzing, trying to make sense of how such an explicitly sexual spectacle -- the climax to an evening of broken taboos -- can be so deeply, utterly unsexy. The event seemed too good to pass up. Dr. Susan Block, a [Jewish] sex celebrity who is, among other items on a groaning rйsumй, an advice columnist, a maker of videos bearing such titles as 'The Fine Art of Fellatio,' the author of 'The 10 Commandments of Pleasure,' the holder of a doctorate in philosophy, a radio and cable access talk-show host and the cleavage-friendly poster child for all things sex-enlightening and self-promoting, was throwing a Valentine's Day party to celebrate the opening of her new sexual institute, located in an old 1920s speakeasy in the heart of downtown L.A.'s art, fashion, financial and convention district ... Max, Susan Block's self-declared publicist, footman, butler, husband and sex slave, offers to show me the art ... 'We've got everything,' he says proudly, then segues into interview mode. 'I'm the most prosecuted publisher in America. I've been prosecuted 20 times and I've spent 18 months in jail.' He ticks off the charges on his fingers. 'Industrial espionage, rack ordinances (I put the first pair of tits on the streets of L.A.), conspiracy to publish.'" Block's online sex shop and altar to hedonistic self-indulgence is The Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts and Sciences.

Cantor Charged in Prostitution Ring. Jerusalem Post, January 31, 2000
"Members of Chicago's Jewish community are expressing shock and dismay about the arrest of a former synagogue cantor and his wife of a few weeks. The two were charged in connection with a prostitution ring. Joel Gordon, 51, who has served at several Chicago-area synagogues, was charged November 21 with keeping a house of prostitution following a police raid on three massage parlors, operated out of private apartments in the northern suburbs. His wife, Alison Ginsberg, 23, was charged with prostitution and keeping a house of prostitution. Gordon was most recently the cantor and spiritual leader of Congregation Shirat Emet, a now-defunct synagogue in the Chicago suburb of Buffalo Grove, Illinois."

Brazilian Police Stake Out Diplomat Accused of Running Kiddie-Porn Ring. Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2000
"Brazilian police continued to surround the Israeli consulate in Rio de Janeiro in the belief that Israeli vice-consul in Rio Aryeh Scher, wanted on suspicion of running a child pornography ring, had taken refuge there. However Foreign Ministry officials said Scher has been en route to Israel for the past two days. Scher, who was at one point consul-general in Rio, was declared a fugitive by Brazilian authorities after a search of his apartment on Tuesday yielded what police officials described as evidence it was used for the manufacture of pornographic material, some of them involving underage girls ... Brazilian authorities notified the Israeli embassy of plans to revoke Scher's diplomatic immunity on Tuesday, prior to the search. By the time police were able to obtain a warrant to search Scher's penthouse, the vice-consul was already on his way back to Israel, where he will face a Foreign Ministry inquiry ... The investigation that culminated in the search of Scher's apartment began when a 17-year-old girl accused Georges Schteinberg, a 40-year-old Hebrew teacher of using her as a model in pornographic pictures and of distributing them on the Internet. Photographs of nude minors posed on a car with diplomatic plates were discovered in a search of Schteinberg's residence earlier in the week, in addition to massive quantities of pornographic material. Police then traced the car in the pictures back to Scher."

Yeshiva Teacher Accused of Molesting Students.
Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2000
"Police three weeks ago launched an investigation into alleged sexual abuse by a teacher at Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav yeshiva 14 years ago ... In mid-December, police were alerted to accusations by three men - now in their late 20s - who studied at the yeshiva in their teenage years and said they were sexually molested by the man. Police then began investigations into other men who reportedly were also sexually abused, but did not come forward ... The head of the yeshiva, former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira, was alerted to the complaints several months ago in an anonymous letter and soon after in an anonymous phone call ... Senior National Religious Party figures, meanwhile, reacted to reports that Shapira attempted to silence those who made the allegations of sexual misconduct ... This is not the first time that Shapira has been suspected of trying to prevent a police inquiry into the improprieties of yeshiva teachers. Last year, he received a warning letter from Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein after he was said to have tried to cover up the illegal sexual behavior of Ze'ev Kopolevitch, formerly head of Jerusalem's Netiv Meir Yeshiva, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison."

Federal Prosecutors Try to Keep Boca Rabbi Jailed, Calling Him a Menace.
Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, July 20, 2001
"Responding to a jailed rabbi's appeal that he be allowed to await trial in a psychological program, federal prosecutors this week argued that Jerrold Levy remains a threat to the community and a flight risk ... Prosecutors said they have developed additional evidence that Levy distributed child pornography to other people, received child pornography from a minor contacted in an Internet chat room, and pursued other minors ... In their response to Levy's appeal, prosecutors said there is 'overwhelming' evidence against Levy to support their existing nine charges of child pornography and using the Internet to entice a juvenile. Last week, Levy, a former associate rabbi at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, filed an emergency motion for release from prison as he waits to hear about an appeal."

Lanner Indicted on Sex Abuse Charges. Jewish Week, March 16, 2000
"Nine months after The Jewish Week reported on allegations that Rabbi Baruch Lanner had abused teenagers in his charge for three decades, a Monmouth County, N.J., grand jury indicted him Wednesday on six criminal charges. The rabbi faces two counts each of aggravated criminal sexual conduct, criminal sexual conduct and endangering the welfare of a child. The crimes are second-, third- and fourth-degree offenses. A second-degree offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison ... The first woman, now 19, alleged that Rabbi Lanner sexually abused her almost daily in his office at the yeshiva when she was a 14-year-old ninth-grader there in 1995 and 1996."

Arrest of Ex-Employee Sparks Concern. compcocity.com [originally from Edmonton Jewish Life], [Undated, 1990s]
"A former employee of Calgary Jewish Community Council has been charged with possession of child pornography, sexual assault and sexual interference with a child under 14 years of age. David Webber, 35, was arrested on February 22. On that date, police executed a search warrant on his apartment. In the search, they seized a large number of Polaroid photographs of nude boys aged 10 to 14 and written materials. Several children have already been interviewed and are alleged to be victims of sexual assault ... Before moving to Calgary, Webber was youth director of the Beth Israel Synagogue in Edmonton. In 1990, he was charged with sexual assault in Edmonton, but the charges were subsequently dismissed."

Synagogue Sexton Guilty of Pedophilia. Haaretz [Israel], June 22, 2001
"A garbage truck driver with a part-time job as a synagogue sexton in a town in the center of the country was convicted yesterday by a Jerusalem District Court for sexually assaulting children who went to synagogue to pray with him ... At least three children were involved, with one, the 13-year-old, being the son of another synagogue official. That boy was so disturbed by the sexual abuse that he took up drugs, and the sexton then exploited that knowledge to blackmail the youth into more sexual intercourse. The other two children were subject to his fondling, often on the back porch of the synagogue during prayers, in exchange for sweets."

'Healer' Convicted of Sexual Assault and Rape.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], June 4, 2001
"A 44-year-old man from Ma'aleh Efraim who passed himself off as a rabbi and healer was yesterday found guilty by the Tel Aviv District Court of sexually assaulting two women and raping one of them ... Cohen claimed to have been blessed by God with healing powers and met with people suffering from a variety of ailments, physical and otherwise, twice a week in a room in a house in Rosh Ha'ayin."

Miss Universe Rapist Receives 16-Year Sentence.
Jerusalem Post, December 29, 1999
"Shlomo Nur, who was convicted this fall of raping Miss Universe beauty queen Linor Abergil, was sentenced today to 16 years in prison by a Tel Aviv district court. Shlomo, who was convicted on two counts of rape and another two counts of sodomy, received a suspended sentence of another four years. Shlomo raped Abergil while the beauty queen was in Italy last year working as a model after receiving her crown. The judges, legal observers said, were persuaded that Shlomo had entrapped the young woman unwillingly at a period when she was alone in a foreign country and vulnerable to his approaches."

Atlanta Strip Club Scandal Marks Return of 'Our Gang.'
[Jewish] Forward, June 29, 2001
"Our boys are still out there, I'm very proud to say,' said Alan Block, a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Pittsburgh and a noted authority on Jewish organized crime in America and overseas. They're running penny-stock scams and providing support for Colombian drug cartels, Mr. Block said. And they're still, in many cases, chummy with the leaders of the old time Italian mob. That is certainly what federal prosecutors are alleging against the flamboyant bar owner Steve Kaplan in the United States district court in Atlanta ... Prosecutors are trying to prove that the flashy 40-year old used his popular Atlanta strip club, the Gold Club, as a front for a prostitution ring that provided high-priced hookers to big name athletes, laundered money and paid protection money to the Gambino crime family in New York ... Over the past several years, Jewish names have surfaced in connection with penny stock scams, in which gangs of aggressive young mobsters corner the market on low-valued stocks, then drive prices up before unloading them ... The ability to adapt has made Jewish mobsters a more difficult target for organized crime investigators ... That sense of internationalism, Mr. Block said, has always been an ace-in-the-hole for Jewish crime syndicates ... Although Jewish mobsters are not immune federal prosecution ... investigators ... have tended to overlook Jewish connections in organized crime, Mr. Block said. The result, he said, is that the Jewish American syndicates have been pretty much free to continue their work in a kind of comfortable anonymity."

Heidi Fleiss Gets 3 Years. E Online, January 7, 1997
"A Los Angeles judge gave 'Hollywood madam' Heidi Fleiss 37 months for federal charges of tax evasion and money laundering today, far less than the 7 to 9 years asked by prosecutors. She'll also perform 300 hours of community service and pay a $400 fine ...Since her arrest, Fleiss has opened a legitimate business, a lingerie company. On the other hand, she was also busted for violating probation by using methamphetamine ... Fleiss still faces state charges of pandering (she was convicted in state court in 1994 but ordered to stand trial again after juror misconduct came to light) ... The feds claimed that Fleiss laundered at least $300,000 in illicit income through her family's bank accounts. Her father, pediatrician-to-the-stars Paul Fleiss, pled guilty to income tax evasion for his role in the scheme."

The Fleiss Family Bed. LA Weekly, April 27-May 3, 2001
"'Children are our ultimate investment,' Los Feliz pediatrician Paul Fleiss says at a signing for his newly released book, Sweet Dreams: A Pediatrician’s Secrets for Your Child’s Good Night’s Sleep. 'We want them to grow up strong and smart. Most importantly, we want them to take care of us.' This wish hasn’t always come true for the gray-, curly-headed Fleiss, the father of notorious Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss. Four months after Heidi was convicted on felony pandering charges, authorities charged him with hiding the profits from his daughter’s call-girl ring and with acting as the go-between in the purchase of her home, a $1.6 million spread once owned by Michael Douglas [son of Jewish actor Kirk Douglas]. Dr. Fleiss pleaded guilty to making false statements to the IRS and conspiracy, and received a sentence of three years’ probation and community service, which included volunteering at the Los Angeles Free Clinic. In addition, the medical board put him on probation for one year."

The Still-Happy Hooker. Moment, February 1, 2001
"[Xaviera Hollander] invited me to Amsterdam to perform, telling me that she, too, was the child of a Holocaust survivor. When I heard that, I was speechless. I remembered Xaviera Hollander as a blonde, long-legged shiksa, the author of a sexually explicit tell-all book—the most famous prostitute in the world. As it turns out, Hollander (her nom de plume, an homage to her birthplace; she was born Xaviera De Vries) is no shiksa. Her father was a Dutch Jewish psychiatrist ... She took a job at a New York call-girl agency to augment her meager salary, eventually becoming a full-time prostitute. But it was not just an economic decision: 'I loved having sex,' she says. 'Since I was sleeping around every night anyway, I figured I might as well get paid for it.' That’s when a business opportunity came along, and she grabbed it, spending her entire savings—$10,000—on the client list of a retiring Park Avenue madam. She began running a high-end brothel out of a brownstone on the Upper East Side, where her clients included a man who asked a lot of questions, soon arousing Hollander’s suspicion. The man turned out to be Eric Kohn, a Jewish journalist researching a book. The two decided to collaborate on an autobiographical account of Hollander’s life, and one year later The Happy Hooker exploded onto the scene—eventually selling 16 million copies ... She even lived for a while with Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione. But shortly thereafter she came under the scrutiny of the Knapp Commission, which had been set up by Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate malpractice and corruption in the New York City Police Department. (The commission was investigating cops who had gone to Hollander’s brothel.) Hollander decided to move to Canada to avoid prosecution ... Addicted to diet pills and unable to control her kleptomania ('I got orgasms from stealing,' she says), she was arrested for stealing a $40 nightgown. That theft, coupled with the fact that she was a confessed criminal in the States, led to her eventual deportation and divorce."

Dicked Around. Metroactive, February 8-14, 1996
"Today [Melvyn] Rosenstein, one of the first and most famous penile enlargement surgeons, faces the end of his career. As of Jan. 25, Rosenstein's medical license was restricted, to protect 'public health and safety' pending a medical board hearing. The celebrated surgeon of schlongs faces permanent suspension from the California Medical Board based on complaints from patients--including Ron Nance--whose enlargements have gone wrong. Ron Nance's story may mark the beginning of the decline of the man they call Dr. Dick ... Melvyn Rosenstein is one of few doctors in the country with his own public relations office ... There is no doubt that Rosenstein, who once bragged of performing up to 10 surgeries per day (he now claims to do five or six), has done more penile-enlargement surgeries than anyone else in the known universe. And Rosenstein has worn the 'Dr. Dick' mantle as only a man who believes he holds the power to bestow manhood in a man's world can. The cocky doctor has shelves filled with phallus fetishes. Ron Nance claims to have seen a sign in Rosenstein's office that read, $56 million in two years!"

The Lady Is a Pornographer. Salon.com, June 26, 2000
""I'm the kink controller here at Click + Drag, which means I have to keep people in line,' says the 40-year-old [Abby] Ehmann. 'I make sure that nothing gets out of control -- just kinky' ... Ehmann has many titles in addition to kink controller. She is the 'editrix' of Extreme Fetish magazine -- dubbed 'The best alternative sex publication in New York' by TimeOut magazine. She is on the board of directors of Feminists for Free Expression, an organization that fights restrictions on free speech, and she is a writer and a performer. But for all her roles, Ehmann has only one mission: to satisfy the appetites of New Yorkers who are not sated by polite and sterile living ... She started a fanzine called Porn Free with the idea of giving away pornography. 'I thought, hey, there's a niche that no one is filling. Of course, it wasn't very profitable.' Ehmann gave up Porn Free after being approached in 1997 by D&L Enterprises, a publishing company, to be the editor of a fetish magazine. It was Ehmann's goal to create a sex publication that would provide fetishists with content suited to their needs. Each monthly issue of Extreme Fetish has a particular theme, such as latex, shoe fetishes or musclebound divas."

When a "Nice Jewish Girl' Gets Embroiled in a Scandal.
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, January 30, 1998
"Monica Lewinsky, the 24-year-old former White House intern whose allegations brought on the worst political crisis of the decade, is one of our own. Will a "nice Jewish girl" from a wealthy upwardly mobile family bring down the Clinton White House? The question is too titillating to ignore, too unnerving to bear. This is a question we in the Jewish community must come to grips with on our own. We know this young woman. She is us, a product of our homes. She is our daughter. She is our younger, more naive selves. Don't be fooled by the $1.6 million price tag on the house where she was raised, or the $20,000 vacations or the fancy cars ... In fact, on the surface, America seems not to know or care about Lewinsky except as a variation on a Clinton theme. The tabloids have been kind to date: I have seen not a single mention of Lewinsky's Jewish roots including her start in Los Angeles' Conservative Sinai Temple Hebrew school, where her mother, now called Marcia Lewis, did her turn assisting at Purim and Passover programs. As with Heidi Fleiss ['Madam to the Stars'] and Ron Goldman [murdered with Nicole Simpson, allegedly by OJ Simpson], code words are today used to imply what once would have been explicitly named. 'Beverly Hills' or 'wealthy doctor father' have been allowed to suffice. And yet, this very lack of cultural specificity is dangerous, for a Jewish community that still doesn't know who it is. We have yet to accept our history for its good and its ill. We have yet to find a way to discuss constructively the personal cost of the 20th century on our psyches and our homes: the diaspora, the pogroms, the constant uprooting only to strive again. Silence is deafening. 'There's no Jewish issue here,' I heard over and over the past week. Instead, the Jewish community is shutting down. A Jewish community leader told me he was wearing his gold saxophone pin, hoping the scandal will blow over. On America Online's Jewish Community (keyword: JEWISH) chat last week I repeatedly heard this script: 'Monica's Jewish?' 'Then how Jewish?' 'Does she belong to a synagogue?' 'Well, then does she keep kosher?' This is the kind of denial that can turn into blindness. I understand the impulse. I, too, want this scandal to end. In fact, I am prepared to argue that Clinton's sex life, even with a nice Jewish girl, is his own business. But I'd also argue that the character and lack of judgment of that nice Jewish girl is our business."

Innocent Until ..., by Andrew Sullivan, New Republic, August 30, 2001
"I hate to interrupt a thoroughly enjoyable lynching, but what exactly has [Congressman] Gary Condit done wrong? I know I must be deranged not to appreciate his obvious guilt, venality, loathsomeness, and every other human failing now pinned to his blow-dried head. But bear with me. The case against him comes down to two essential points. The first is that Condit impeded the police investigation into the disappearance of Chandra Levy. The second is that, since he was her adulterous, secret lover, he is rightly a prime suspect in any foul play that may have occurred. Hence it is legitimate for the media to pursue him as part of the story of the missing intern. Neither of these claims bears scrutiny ... The second question is why Condit is the only suspect we ever hear about. Levy appears to have had many affairs. The dynamic of the media coverage has prevented this vital background from being discussed. The preordained story has a naive young girl betrayed by a predatory adulterer. But Levy was not naive. In high school, she interned at the Modesto Police Department, where, according to a source cited by [Talk magazine's Lisa] DePaulo, 'she did a lot more exploring than the program was designed to handle.' She reportedly dated one married man for several years. According to DePaulo, an intimate 'knew that she'd had lots of relationships--including several with other cops and several with other married men.' If you parse DePaulo's story closely, as the writer Bob Somerby has, it suggests that Levy had at least four separate married lovers before Condit. And she was 23 when she first locked eyes with the congressman. I'm not criticizing her; Levy had every right to have an adventurous sex life with married men. But if such a person suddenly disappeared, would there be only one possible suspect?"

Sex and the Single JAP, by Elissa Silverman.
Washington City Paper, July 20-26, 2001
"Monica [Lewinsky] and Chandra [Levy] —with their Jewish, upper-middle-class California upbringings, complete with oncologist fathers and gardeners and hours clocked at Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's—take a blowtorch to the stereotype of Jewish American Princesses being frigid in bed and uncomfortable with sex. Finally. At last, we've truly assimilated. In fact, America seems downright entranced with our sexual exploits and indiscretions. First Middle America embraced bagels, and then Seinfeld and klezmer and Joe Lieberman. Now we've seamlessly insinuated ourselves into our country's political sex scandal obsession. Bimbo dyed blondes like Donna Rice and Gennifer Flowers have been pushed aside, of late, in favor of Semitic, thick-haired brunettes like Monica and Chandra. God bless America. Is it good for the Jews? Some say so. Though many within the Jewish community have expressed embarrassment at these tabloid gems, others see liberation. In January 1998, Lewinsky's sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton made headlines right as then–Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat were meeting at the White House. But Clinton was too preoccupied by the stained blue dress to force Netanyahu to give up land for peace in the Middle East."

Youth Pilgrimages to Poland.
World Jewish Congress [Policy Dispatches, No. 44], December 1999
"It is the often boisterous, raucous behavior of Israeli students and even teachers [who visit Poland on yearly tours to old concentration camps] that has attracted more attention than the trips themselves, and raises questions far deeper than the wisdom of sending thousands of Israeli youth to Poland every year. In recent years Israeli Army officers were criticized for playing cards on a bus carrying them to an official visit to Auschwitz; Israeli tour operators advertised a trip to casinos in Poland with an Auschwitz-visit option; and an Israeli rock group wanted to stage a concert on the site of the death camp. In November, when it was revealed that students from a kibbutz group had invited strippers (both male and female) to perform before them in their hotel rooms, Israeli society, and especially the survivor community, were scandalized at what they saw as behavior that dishonored Israel and the Jewish people; and moreover, indicated that they had neither understood, nor respected, the unspeakable tragedy of the Holocaust. The same week in which the behavior of the kibbutz youth was revealed, the press was filled with headlines about Israel's crushing 5:0 defeat in a soccer match against Denmark. It was suggested in the media that the sluggish performance of the Israeli squad was in part due to the fact that the Israeli athletes had spent the night before the match dallying with local prostitutes who came to their hotel rooms. Again there was indignation about the dishonor brought to the Jewish state by its representatives. These two unconnected events can be seen as flagrant examples of a malaise that plagues Israeli society ... Symptomatic of this is the widespread use of drugs in Israeli high schools and the increasing level of violence, including rape."

The Law of Return [from Israel: Whose Country Is It Anyway?, by well-known Jewish lesbian feminist Andrea Dworkin, 1990 [posted here at igc.org]
"You have to see it to believe it and even seeing it might not help. I've been sent it over the years by feminists in Israel--I had seen it--I didn't really believe it. Unlike in the United States, pornography is not an industry. You find it in mainstream magazines and advertising. It is mostly about the Holocaust. In it, Jewish women are sexualized as Holocaust victims for Jewish men to masturbate over. Well, would you believe it, even if you saw it? Israeli women call it 'Holocaust pornography.' The themes are fire, gas, trains, emaciation, death ... . Monitin is a left-liberal slick monthly for the intelligentsia and upper class. It has high productions and aesthetic values. Israel's most distinguished writers and intellectuals publish in it. Judith Antonelli in The Jewish Advocate reported that Monitin 'contains the most sexually violent images. Photos abound of women sprawled out upside-down as if they have just been attacked.' Or, in a magazine for women that is not unlike Ladies' Home Journal, there is a photograph of a woman tied to a chair with heavy rope. Her shirt is torn off her shoulders and upper chest but her arms are tied up against her so that only the fleshy part of the upper breasts is exposed. She is wearing pants--they are wet. A man, fully dressed, standing next to her, is throwing beer in her face. In the United States, such photographs of women are found in bondage magazines. For purists, there is an Israeli pornography magazine. The issue I saw had a front-page headline that read: ORGY AT YAD VASHEM. Yad Vashem is the memorial in Jerusalem to the victims of the Holocaust. Under the headline, there was a photograph of a man sexually entangled with several women. What does this mean--other than that if you are a Jewish woman you don't run to Israel, you run from it?"

Dick Morris' Wife Walking Out After 20 Years.
The News Times [from Associated Press], January 6, 1997
"Former [Bill Clinton] presidential adviser Dick Morris [also Jewish] , who resigned after a $200-an-hour prostitute said she had a longtime affair with him, said he is saddened his wife has decided to leave him ... Shortly after her husband resigned in August, Ms. McGann, 48, appeared at his side during a news conference at their Connecticut home. But she was further scandalized by a subsequent report of another Morris infidelity, this one involving a 15-year relationship with a Texas woman that produced a child ... A top political advisor to President Clinton, Morris resigned when Washington prostitute Sherry Rowlands claimed he had hired her many times. She said he even shared sensitive information with her and let her listen in on phone calls with the president."

Bedrooms and Politics: As America Becomes More Forgiving, Honesty May Be the Best Policy When It Comes to Sex Scandals ... Even Gay Ones.
The Advocate, March 17, 1998
"When U.S. representative Barney Frank [also Jewish] heard the allegations that Bill Clinton had had an affair with a young White House intern, he must have felt a touch of empathy. The openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts was once embroiled in his own sex scandal, involving a young male prostitute who had launched an escort service out of the basement of Frank's Washington, D.C., town house. When Frank, who had a sexual relationship with the hustler, discovered the enterprise in 1987 -- the same year he made his sexual orientation public -- he threw the man out of his home. Two years later the prostitute, Steve Gobie, went public with the story, plunging Frank into a scandal that many predicted would cost him his political career. But nine years later Frank has been reelected by his suburban Boston district four times and is one of the most powerful and high