5WPR’s founder and president, Ronn Torossian, just issued this statement about the controversy engulfing his company [UPDATE: This is the revised version that the company sent out a few minutes after the first one]:

While traveling earlier this week with my family out of the country, my IT department investigated accusations which we have now learned to be true. A senior staff member failed to be transparent in dealing with client matters. He has taken full responsibility.

We have been in business since January 2003 – and according to Odwyer’s 2007 rankings our revenues exceeded $11.5M, and we are the 21st largest independent PR firm in the United States.

Growing companies often have problems in their expansion, and we continue to strive for the highest performance. We have instituted internal measures to ensure this cannot happen again. We continue to strive for the highest ethical standards.

This battle is not about blogging, it is however about protecting the highest levels of Kashrut in the Jewish community. We as a firm feel personally and professionally passionate about these, and related issues.

Critics of traditional Judaism have chosen to smear the largest provider of the highest level kashrut meat in the world. We stand with protecting kashrut.

And treif meat, too.

Seriously, though, one of the most intriguing aspects of this entire story is that 5WPR has managed to carve out two seemingly contradictory niches, representing both traditionalist Jewish groups and celebrities associated with the raunchier side of American pop culture (for example, Girls Gone Wild — that’s Torossian on the left at the 28-second mark — and Lil’ Kim). The media equivalent would be Fox, which has an entertainment division that has arguably done more than any other company to create the debased standards of decency on television that the traditionalist/conservative folks over at the news division love to rail against.

UPDATE: The Forward’s Nathaniel Popper hit on this irony back a few years ago with this profile on Torossian.

Back in June, Joe Klein found himself on the defensive, after he argued that “the desire of a great many Jewish neoconservatives — people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary” to go to war with Iraq and Iran was raising questions about Jewish loyalties. He went back and forth with Commentary bloggers, including Jennifer Rubin, and exchanged feisty letters (here and here) with the ADL’s Abe Foxman. He also was criticized by John McCain.

Well … we’d like to update you on Round 2.

Klein recently took aim at a column by Rubin in the Jerusalem Post titled “Why more Jews won’t be voting Democrat this year.”

The Times columnist characterized Rubin as saying that “the most important thing for Jewish Americans to consider about Barack Obama is his policy toward Israel.” And then…

“The real problem with Rubin’s distorted view is this: the overwhelming majority of American Jews–except, perhaps, for the Commentary crowd — are far more concerned about what the next President has to say about the United States than about Israel. Rubin’s description of the interests of American Jews is an embarrassment that plays into the worst antisemitic stereotypes.”

Two problems with Klein’s slam on Rubin.

First, she never suggested that the bulk of American Jews would end up voting for McCain over Israel-related concerns. In fact, she suggested the opposite:

That does not mean Obama will not carry the majority of the Jewish vote. Jews are overwhelmingly Democratic, and it is certainly the case that for many American Jews the secular liberal agenda takes precedence over everything else in presidential politics.

The second point is that did she say specifically say that Israel is “the most important thing” for Jews to consider when voting for president.

What she did say is that there are some Jews who believe Israel’s survival is at stake, and that there is nothing in Obama’s record to suggest that he will definitely deliver in a life-or-death crisis.

On the one hand, it’s easy to understand why Joe Klein, himself a Jew, takes umbrage with what he feels are the efforts of conservatives to accuse him of anti-Semitism. But, at the same time, last time I checked, Rubin is an American, so maybe he should be a bit more cautious before painting her with the dual-loyalty brush.

His post leaves me wondering: If Klein thought Israel’s survival depended on the actions of the U.S. president, and he concluded that a specific candidate could not be counted on to back up Israel, to what degree would that sway his vote?

Shidduch vetting in the Orthodox world has gotten out of control, writes Tamar Snyder in the Wall Street Journal:

Just as the economy is headed to recession, the shidduch system is in crisis mode. Or so the rabbis moan, noting the surplus of women eager to marry and the corresponding shortfall in the quality and quantity of available Jewish men. It’s not that there are more Orthodox women than men out there; experts instead attribute the shortage to the broader sociological trend of postponing marriage, which works to the disadvantage of women looking for spouses their own age or just a few years older. Men who are 30 will date women as young as 18 and may turn their noses up at dating any woman past the age of 25. The 20% or 30% of women who don’t get hitched right away begin to worry they’ll be left out in the cold for good.

Friday’s news of new allegations against the Israeli prime minister has fueled talk of Israel after Ehud Olmert.

Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post both slam Olmert’s government — and not just the prime minister — for its inability to focus on the important issues facing Israel, such as challenges from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and corrupting forces within.

In an editorial, the Jerusalem Post cites the preponderance of Cabinet meetings related to corruption probes and political survival, rather than strategic threats, as just some of the reasons that Kadima voters should toss Olmert out.

Yoel Marcus writes that in the two years since the seminal event of Olmert’s career, the Second Lebanon War, the government has been asleep at the wheel:

A sober assessment of the immediate future has become more complicated since the last war. To cope with the threats that lie ahead, we need to concentrate on four things. One, the public must realize that the fight isn’t over and we cannot turn our swords into plowshares just yet. Two, we need an authoritative political and military leadership that can correctly evaluate the situation and do what needs to be done. Three, an effort must be made to get Syria to quit the radical axis and switch off war mode, thereby weakening Hezbollah and Iran. Four, we must act wisely in our dealings with Iran, and make sure to look before we leap.

A Ha’aretz editorial simply calls for Olmert to go on vacation immediately and allow someone else — someone not threatened by a possible indictment — to run the country:

Olmert is still presumed innocent, but the public has a right to a prime minister who is not almost completely consumed with reading folders filled with evidence and consulting with image advisers bent on making people forget what’s in them.

The Kadima primary will be held in late September. Whether or not Olmert competes, that is too long to wait to replace the prime minister.

Yossi Sarid urges readers in the coming election to think not just about who will be prime minister, but who will be justice minister.

A photograph of an Iranian missile test used by media outlets all over the world Wednesday was apparently altered to add a missile that wasn’t actually there. This close look by The New York Times shows how a fourth missile was added to the photograph.

Before

After

The real missiles reportedly have a range to reach Israel.

• Sacha Baron Cohen has had to postpone his wedding to Australian actress Isla Fisher because she hasn’t had time to complete her Torah studies, the Mail Online reports.
• The Smoking Gun brings us more tales of Cohen’s recent filmmaking adventures.
• Chelsea soccer club owner and Jewish tycoon Roman Abramovich reportedly has bought the world’s most expensive house, a $500 million estate on the French Riviera formerly owned by Bill Gates and, more recently, Edmond Safra.
• Quentin Tarantino’s remake of the 1977 B-movie Inglorious Bastards is being hailed as an “epic, bugged-out Jewsploitation film.”
• Facebook will launch a Hebrew language version of their reputable social networking website.
• The Jewish Journal examines the way in which American Jewish youth express their Jewish identities on Facebook.
• The MJL blog digs up a faux-commercial from a 1980-something SNL episode for “Jewess Jeans.”
• Two Jewish Shanghai residents married in what was the first wedding to take place in the city’s historic synagogue in 60 years.
• “The father of an 11-year-old boy who was told that his son was not Jewish enough to be accepted at one of the [UK]’s leading Orthodox schools has lost his claim for unlawful discrimination.”

Two years after the Second Lebanon War, Israel is suddenly waking up and pressing for implementation of the U.N. resolution that ended the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, 1701.

On Wednesday, Israel’s Security Cabinet convened a hastily arranged discussion about the lack of implementation of the resolution, which called for stemming the flow of arms to Hezbollah. Now the Israelis are trying to press UNIFIL, the U.N. force in southern Lebanon, to make sure Hezbollah falls into line.

Too little too late?

The Jerusalem Post writes:

The war’s most urgent lessons, the adoption of which might prevent another round of fighting, remain regrettably unlearned.

First, due to its stubbornly misplaced faith in the UN, Israel has continued to turn a blind eye to the rearming of Hizbullah.

The Post reserves its harshest critique for Israel’s political leadership:

The broadest unlearned lesson from the war concerns Israel’s political culture itself. From the days of the Muslim conquest of Andalusia to today, it is impossible to recall Arab expressions of guilt or remorse over military victory. In contrast, Israel’s political echelons have typically been prompted to hand-wringing self-examination less by defeat than by victory. Yet healthy self-examination - of the kind so lacking in the wake of the latest war - requires precisely the opposite.

Could it be that both an underlying cause, and an effect, of the failures of the Second Lebanon War is that those steering this country no longer believe in the justice of its cause as utterly as used to be the case?

Ha’aretz’s Israel Harel also lays the blame for the failure of 1701 with Israel’s leadership:

The cabinet yesterday discussed “Hezbollah’s missile arsenal.” But what is such a discussion worth when there is no leadership in Israel today capable of making security decisions - even if the dangers and means of dealing with them are defined correctly? What is it worth when there is no leadership capable of insisting on decisions being implemented in full, even in the face of a public opinion with little patience and low endurance for suffering? The kind of public opinion that represses the central threats to the state’s existence and is not prepared to pay the necessary price for Jewish sovereignty.

After all, the main reason we do not escape the cycle of endless war is that every time we are on the edge of victory we stop the battle one step too soon - two years ago in Lebanon, and now with Hamas. This allows the enemy to recover and claim victory, continuing the struggle, justifiably from his point of view, until the Zionist Jewish entity comes to an end.

We have a brief up on the announcement that Israeli President Shimon Peres will participate in the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

Here’s the statement sent out by Prime Minister Olmert’s office …

The President of Israel, Shimon Peres, will participate in the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics together with Presidents and Heads of State from all over the world, including the President of the U.S.A., the President of France, the Prime Minister of Russia, the President of Turkey and the Prime Minister of South Korea

The Office of the President today officially informed the Chinese Olympics Committee that the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, has accepted the invitation of the administration and will participate in the opening events of the 2008 Beijing Olympics as President of the State of Israel.

It should be noted that the Chinese administration and the Olympics Committee invested great efforts in making the participation of the President in the Olympics possible, after having been informed by the President’s Office that the President would not be able to be present at the opening event in the stadium due to desecration of the Sabbath. The Chinese did not give up and decided, in an unprecedented step, to separate the President of Israel from the other Heads of State and to accommodate him in a special hotel which was built within the Olympics compound at a walking distance from the event arena.

The President’s Office staff, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Olympics Committee, together with the Chinese Embassy in Israel, are now working on the details of the visit which is due to take place around the opening ceremony of the Olympics on the evening of 8th October, 2008.

In a letter sent to the Office of the President by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it was stated: “The Government of China places great importance in the participation of Heads of State and of outstanding personalities in the festive event which its leaders are holding to mark the opening of the games.”

In addition the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted, “The presence of President Peres in the Olympics opening event has an additional symbolic significance, as President Peres is the Honorary President of the Israel-China Friendship Association and among the architects of the important relations between the two countries.”

In the message conveyed by the President of Israel to the Chinese Administration, President Peres said that “the Beijing Olympics is an international sporting event which is meant to promote the fraternity and peace between peoples and that he sees great importance in the strengthening of the relations between Israel and China and in promoting the economic, cultural and security ties.”

It should be noted that recently the President of China sent invitations to a special conference he is holding for world leaders. Among those who have confirmed their participation are the President of the U.S.A., George W. Bush; the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy; the President of Turkey, Abdullah Gül; the Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin; the Prime Minister of Korea, Myung-sook Han; the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva; the Prime Minister of Japan, Yasuo Fukuda, and the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Michael Rudd.

During his stay in China the President of Israel will hold a wide range of political meetings with world leaders and will take the opportunity to disseminate extensive information on Israel. On the arrival of the President in China the traditional hoisting of the flag by the Israeli Olympics delegation in the Olympics village will take place with the participation of the heads of the Israeli Olympics delegation including all the sports people and their trainers, representatives of the Olympics Committee and dignitaries including the Mayor of Beijing. On this occasion the President will wish the members of the Olympics delegation success.

It should be noted that the President of Israel will leave on a regular flight and will be accompanied by a small delegation.

FailedMessiah reports today that two comments attributed to Rabbi Morris Allen, the Minnesota rabbi behind the Conservative movement’s Hekhsher Tzedek project, originated in the office of 5WPR, the public relations firm hired to help kosher meat producer Agriprocessors cope with the fallout from the May 12 raid. We’re still seeking comment from 5W.

Shira Dicker, a publicist working with Allen, sends us this email:

Dear Reporters,

In a bizarre effort to discredit the efforts of Rabbi Morris Allen, the founder and spiritual force behind Hekhsher Tzedek — the new ethical certification of the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism — staffers from 5W Public Relations wrote phony comments in his name on the website www.failedmessiah.com.

Hekhsher Tzedek is pursuing legal action in this matter.

The Lower Hudson Journal News published a story on Baile Glauber, an Orthodox woman who recently graduated from the Rockland Police Academy.

A newly hired town police officer has been given Friday nights to Saturday evenings off to accommodate her religious beliefs.

The special work schedule afforded Officer Baile J. Glauber has raised concerns among other officers, said Officer Dennis Procter, the department’s Police Benevolent Association president.

“I hope the town is not going to give special treatment to one individual for religious observances and not give other officers the same opportunities,” Procter said. “We all can’t always make temple or church or spend weekends with our families.”

It’s tough to be an Orthodox woman cop. First the fellow officers don’t want you getting special religious treatment. Then the peanut gallery at a popular Orthodox Web site don’t think you’re one of them.

Here are a few of the comments at The Yeshiva World site:

• How can an orthodox let alone an ultra-orthodox woman carry a gun? which I assume a police officer must do? Isn’t it an issur d’oraysa? (the poskim have given only very specfic heterim).
• I would think there were tznius issues here as well. A police person sometimes has to get physical. This doesn’t sound like something a really frum woman should be doing.
• How will she arrest a man? ask her husband to hold him? or she’ll only arrst females?
• A female police officer, by definition, cannot be Orthodox Jewish. She may claim to be Orthodox, like I can claim to be the Pope, but Orthodox it doesn’t make her.
• Did she get an exemption from wearing pants too? Or does tzinius (and other halachas) not apply when inconvenient?

The blogger DovBear offered this response to Glauber’s Orthodox critics:

Everyone following the thread here? If you wish to be absent from work on shabbos, for the sake of keeping the seventh day holy, you still might not be frum enough to win any respect from this crowd.