Rabbi convicted of molesting daughter
Israel Weingarten, a 59-year-old ultra-Orthodox rabbi who cross-examined his own daughter at his sex-abuse trial, has been convicted of molesting her as a child. A Brooklyn federal jury convicted Weingarten of five counts of traveling outside the country to have sex with a minor.
The 27-year-old victim said she had been molested while living with her family in Chassidic communities in Belgium, and on trips to England and Israel.
Weingarten, a member of the Satmar community in Monsey, N.Y., acted as his own lawyer during the trial, delivering a rambling opening statement in which he claimed he was being falsely accused by a daughter who rebelled against a strict upbringing.
After the verdict, the daughter said being questioned by her father was “like being molested again.” She added: “I wish he wasn’t my father.” The woman has changed her name, but she came forward and identified herself in open court as the daughter of the rabbi. Sentencing was scheduled for April 3. — jta
Wisconsin paper no longer a weekly
The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle will switch from a weekly to a monthly publication after laying off two-thirds of its six-person staff and reducing one full-time job to part time, the paper announced on its Web site.
The Milwaukee Jewish Federation, which made the decision, subsidizes the Chronicle at about $25,000 a year, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The 88-year-old newspaper is mailed to about 8,000 homes.
“This is not about federation cuts but what’s going on in the newspaper industry today,” federation spokeswoman Laura Barnard told the Journal-Sentinel. — jta