Dress up day at Yavneh, Sushan Purim-March 17, 2014
Man Arrested In Plot To Bomb Los Angeles Subway, Fight In Syria
A California man who spoke of wanting to bomb the Los Angeles subway system was arrested near the Canadian border in Washington state and charged with attempting to travel to Syria to fight alongside Islamic extremists, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Nicholas Teausant, 20, of Acampo, Calif., an unincorporated area near Lodi, was taken off a northbound Amtrak bus overnight just short of the border.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Sacramento described him as a student at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton and a member of the National Guard who is being discharged for failing to meet basic academic requirements.
Beginning last spring, Teausant began expressing on his online photography account a desire to see America’s downfall, saying “I would love to join Allah’s army but I don’t even know how to start,” the complaint said.
Later, he took to another online forum to say he hoped to fight in Syria, the document states.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Teausant had a lawyer. He was charged with a single count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and was due to appear later Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
The complaint said he had discussed numerous other ideas for terrorist activity that never came to fruition, including a plot supposedly hatched during a camping trip with seven other people to bomb the Los Angeles subway system last New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
Investigators never corroborated that such a camping trip actually occurred. When an informant questioned Teausant on Jan. 4 about what happened to his plan, Teausant responded that it was canceled because “they” had been “tipped off,” the complaint said.
The complaint also said he had been planning since October to support the efforts of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a group that has been fighting in Syria’s three-year-old civil war and is designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.
Investigators said Teausant discussed his scheme at length with a person who turned out to be a paid FBI informant, repeatedly affirming that he was serious about it.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a breakaway organization from al-Qaida that is considered one of the most brutal groups fighting in Syria’s civil war, made up largely of non-Syrian Islamic militants. It has seized several areas in Syria as it fights the government of President Bashar Assad.
The complaint said Teausant referred to himself as a convert to Islam but did not give details about when or why he may have done so. He met the informant through a mutual acquaintance, the document said.
Among Teausant’s plans was to appear in videos for the group, without covering his face — to be “the one white devil that leaves their face wide open to the camera,” he was quoted in the complaint as saying.
The informant put Teausant in contact with a “mentor” — in reality, an undercover federal agent — who could purportedly approve his efforts to join the extremists. Early this month, the “mentor” blessed Teausant’s travels, and he boarded a train for Seattle on Sunday night, the complaint said.
When the bus arrived in Blaine, just south of Vancouver, British Columbia, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped it and questioned Teausant about where he was headed. He responded that he was traveling to Vancouver and was arrested, the complaint said.
The complaint said Teausant enlisted in the National Guard in April 2012 but never underwent basic training because he didn’t meet academic requirements.
The complaint also states that Teausant told the informant he has an infant daughter, and had arranged for his mother to get custody of the girl if he disappeared.
At one point, the informant questioned him about whether he was serious about his plans, given that he talked a lot but did not seem to follow through.
The maximum penalty for attempting to provide support to a foreign terrorist organization is 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The Clown Therapist Who Sees No Borders
Reuven Singer can often be seen wearing two very different uniforms that seem worlds apart.
The 33-year-old father, who lives in Karnei Shomron in northwestern Samaria, dons his bullet-proof vest and carries his M16 to protect his community in an event of a terrorist attack, as a volunteer in his neighborhood security watch team. But Singer’s other uniform – a far jollier one – consists of a red rubber nose, clown shoes, and a colorful tie and crazy hat that he wears during clown therapy sessions at a Tel Aviv hospital.
The religious settler travels once a week to the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), where he works to uplift patients, through jokes, laughter and improvisation.
“A hospital is not a fun place,” Singer tells Tazpit News Agency. You want the patients to feel more comfortable.
“I’ve worked with children and parents who are hysterical before blood infusions, check-ups, or surgery. My job is to relax the parents and help the child overcome the pain and tension. That helps the staff and doctors too. Once you give the parent and child a chance to smile and breathe more easily, it helps everyone,” Singer told Tazpit News Agency in an exclusive interview.
Singer, who has been volunteering as clown therapist for three years, has worked with many different sectors of Israeli society including Palestinian children from Gaza who have been brought into Israel for treatment. “You don’t look at the person before you – I don’t see an Arab, Eritrean, Russian, or whatever ethnicity person is – all I see is the pain.”
“To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s an Arab child or a Jewish child – I want to help bring that person out of the pain and give him or her some positive energy,” Singer explains.
“Sometimes, I throw in a word in Russian or Arabic during a joke and the smile in return is worth everything.”
Singer has found himself in situations where rocks have been thrown at his vehicle on his way home to Samaria from the hospital. “Palestinians throwing rocks at my vehicle won’t stop me,” he says. “I believe that when Arab patients see me, it will give them a chance to see that a religious settler is not a monster and maybe in turn it will make them stop throwing rocks.”
Singer’s day job is aerial photography but he says that it’s his volunteer work that is most meaningful. “I volunteer in two very different professions, but both save lives in different ways.”
He describes a unique Purim two years ago in Karnei Shomron when he dressed up in the clown costume he usually donned for clown therapy session. Suddenly in the middle of the Purim seuda (festive holiday meal) the community was alerted to a potential terror threat.
“Here I was, dressed as a clown with a red rubber nose, and I had to go out with my M16 for a security check,” he says. “That was truly a bizarre experience.”
Today an estimated number of 320 clown therapists operate across Israel. Following a chance meeting with a clown therapist who treated Singer’s daughter when she was hospitalized five years ago, Singer decided to take a six-month clown therapy course where he learned how to be a medical clown himself.
“I go to the hospital every week and act as a clown to make someone feel better. I want to change a child’s reality for good and this is how I do it.”
By Anav Silverman
Tazpit News Agency
Purim 5774 In Pictures
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Parshat Tzav – The Eruv is Up!
Parshat Tzav- March 14, 2014 – 12 Adar II 5774
The Eruv is Up!
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Parshat Tzav LA Candle Lighting: 6:42pm
Parshat Tzav
March 14, 2014 – 12 Adar II 5774
Los Angeles: 6:42 pm
(source: www.ou.org)
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Etta Launches Purim Campeign- Click the video to watch & donate!
Purim is a time to give to those in need… Click the video to watch & donate!
Growing up, what did you hope for from your summer vacations? Friends, fun, laughter… and then maybe as you got a little older, travel, education, something that would prepare you for what was ahead?
Summer@ETTA provides all of that for individuals with disabilities. Some participants can’t walk. Others don’t talk. All want to be accepted and to reach their potential.
Please give whatever you can — $10 to $10,000! ($10 is the minimum according to Crowdrise.) We are very excited to announce that your donation will be MATCHED, dollar for dollar!
Through life skills training, song, drama, cooking, yoga, trips, and more, Summer@ETTA brings together young adults and adults, with and without disabilities, to learn and grow together.
We are planning the summer season already, but still have to raise much-needed funds. YOU can be a part of making these dreams come true.
BE A PART OF MAKING THIS SUMMER POSSIBLE! Be a part of the ETTA family.
If you want to see more of where your donation is going, don’t donate anonymously! Make sure to give us your email and we’ll send you pictures of the upcoming Summer season as it unfolds!
Yoely Lebovits – Ad Deloy Yooda
Get to that high level of joy and bliss that you can’t even see the difference in the blessed and the cursed, you get to see beyond.
In a pure and holy level to get closer to oneness, drink, Lechaim.. Experience real joy in life 🙂
Have a joyous & meaningful purim.. Drink responsibly, connect to something deeper..
In this music video, Yoely Lebovits, the Pester Rebbe, gets his friends together to join in dance in pure joy towards the level of Ad Deloy Yooda.. Until you don’t even know…
Beyond knowledge 🙂
Smile at your friend 🙂 bring peace around you 🙂
#ADY
Produced by On Time Studios