MORE SIGNS THIS SHIP IS SINKING


Vicki Polin
Just received this email from reader J.:

Did you know that Rabbi Yosef Blau has apparently resigned from the Awareness Center? He is no longer listed as the Vice President, his picture and bio are gone.

What happened?

Well, not a frequent visitor to the AC myself (Vicki booted me off her list a while back), I rushed online to check the once lengthy list of dignitaries associated with VP et al. To my amazement (I amaze easily), the list has shrunk significantly in my absence. It's down to:

Board of Directors
  1. Victoria Polin, MA, ATR, LCPC - President
  2. Michael J. Salamon, PhD - Treasurer
  3. Renée Mayerson Cannella, JD - Director at Large
Advisory Board
  1. Mesa Leventhal Baker, MD
  2. Rabbi Reuven Bulka, Ph.D.
  3. Rebecca Hoffberger
  4. Leah Marinelli, RN, CNM., NP

Now on to truly nasty stuff by Vicki Polin. In her Yahoo group listserv note yesterday she quotes the JWB story about Hershy Worch verbatim, then adds this:

"He even fled the US for Turkey rather than show up at custody hearings."

This is already the stuff of libel suits. Hershy appeared in Chicago family court in March and the Judge completely and without prejudice closed the case of his dispute with his ex-wife. The dispute had nothing to do with custody, but was over technical issues concerning the disputants' financial obligations within their settlement. Thousands of ex-couples meet over such disputes in US courts every day. But Polin chose to use the resources of the Awareness Center to do the monkey-with-the-feces thing one more time.

Why? Because Vicki, vindictive and damaged, is looking to hurt me. And since she has nothing on me (that can change, of course, as Ms. Polin seems to be less and less in need of facts to sling the chips) -- she tries to hurt me through my friend. Why? Because I stand up to her, with my real identity, real address, real face, and challenge the veracity of her insane allegations about some of the best and dearest in our community.

And so anything goes, including outrageous lies. Someone must stop this woman and the organization she's destroying.

If you think that at this point Vicki Polin is assisting even one singular abused woman in a legitimate fashion, do tell me about it. My impression is that she's madly dashing about, looking to get even with a world that won't play by her rules.

How very uncool.

Luke Ford published this note, from Rabbis Saul J. Berman and Joseph Telushkin to Rabbi Blau, which may explain his urgent departure from the AC. The letter, dated September 13, 2004, has this to say about the gang at the Awareness Center:
  1. The claim that the site will only report previously published accusations is an outright lie. Vicki has herself sent anonymous slanderous postings to web blogs and then cited them on The Awareness Center site as the basis for serious accusations.
  2. The Awareness Center posts and distributes material which is totally false, describing as fact occurrences which simply never took place. The clear intent is the character assassination of those whom Vicki has decided are deserving of public defamation.
  3. The site does not remove accusatory material even after full and multiple investigations have concluded that they are false.
  4. The Awareness Center has initiated campaigns to destroy the reputation and work prospects of accused persons, even after their names have been formally cleared and/or full resolution between the parties has been achieved.
  5. The site will provide no opportunity for response by accused persons, other than an admission of guilt.
  6. The attempt to destroy people's reputations long after their death is not the pursuit of justice, it is journalistic pornography.

That last one is exceptionally funny, not because of the reference to Reb Shlomo Carlbach, a regular post-mortem victim of Vicki's crusade, but because of another choice instance of saving the abused: the fearless attack on "Jacob Frank and The Frankist Movement." Never again will that false messiah degrade Jewish values in 18th Century Central Europe!

OK, maybe we shouldn't totally stop the Awareness Center, maybe keep the jokes...