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L.A. Rabbi Arrested on Sex Abuse Charges; Israel Ups Defense Budget

Plus $1,000 to observe Shabbat, and more in the news

by
Stephanie Butnick
October 31, 2013

• Beverly Hills Rabbi Mendel Tevel has been arrested and is facing extradition to New York over charges he molested young boys when he worked as a youth counselor in Brooklyn. [NY Post]

• Cha-ching: Israel’s Defense Ministry budget is getting a 2.75 billion NIS increase. [Haaretz]

• Former Hasid Ari Mandel’s fundraising campaign for Chai Lifeline took an unusual turn when a Facebook user said he’d contribute $1,000 if Mandel would observe one Shabbat, which Mandel agreed to. (The donor said he would’ve paid double.) [Times of Israel]

Homeland’s Claire Danes is hosting a Nobel Peace Prize concert in Norway this December, which will celebrate the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, this year’s winner. [Times of Israel]

• Married novelists Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer are selling their Park Slope brownstone for a whopping $14.5 million. They paid $5.75 million for the property in 2005. [NY Daily News]

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.