Kosher Meals Not Kosher Enough for Pedophile

By Michael Kaminer August 16, 2010

When most inmates complain about jail food, they’re told — literally — to eat it up. Not Baruch Lebovits. The disgraced Satmar hasid, who was convicted of sexually molesting a teenage boy, is getting kosher food from a store in Queens delivered to his cell at Rikers Island, according to the New York Post – even though the jail already provides kosher catering for Jewish inmates.

Lebovits apparently complained that Rikers’ kosher offerings “hadn’t had proper rabbinical supervision,” the Post reported. Last week, “a Rikers jail captain was ordered to pick up $60 worth of glatt kosher canned meals for the sicko, including Salisbury steak, stuffed shells, cheese ravioli and barbecued chicken wings from Alle Processing in Maspeth, Queens,” the newspaper fumed.

“Lebovits’ adherence to holy law,” the Post noted, “apparently didn’t preclude repeatedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old classmate of his son, a heinous crime for which he was sentenced in March to up to 32 years in prison.”

As disturbing as the Post story were some of the reader comments it elicited. “He need [sic] a kosher noose around his kosher neck,” wrote “bobbyt.” “shlomo-dee” claimed, “hasidics are well connected with city hall.” And “MichaelGourdine,” a reader claiming to be a former cop, implied Orthodox Jews get favorable treatment across the board:

“AS a N.Y.C. Police Officer assigned to Brooklyns Criminal court section. I did all kinds of favors for Rabbis I won’t name. I would rush them through the sysytem [sic] and have their paperwork on the “Bridge” before judge Karopkin or Delory in 2 hours while everyone else would be sleeping on the floor like sardines for up to three days waiting to see a judge. I would go get them kosher food from lee avenue in williamsburg. Let them make long distance phone calls to Isreal and all sorts of things…….They sure do know how to return a favor.”

Stephen Morello, a Department of Corrections spokesperson, did not return the Forward’s request for comment.

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