I am more than disappointed that I can not turn my attention to the infinite cesspool that passes for our Federation Health and Fitness Corporation.  I have been a busy guy grabbing up VOS JCC and Federation documents and tax returns and believe it or not, I am just overwhelmed at the extent of what has transpired there.  Really, I think that I am just about burned out because I think I would need a staff of ten full time people just to catalog their idiocy.  Unfortunately, I have to save that for future posts because the word of the day is that Jess Schwartz Academy just got sued for fraud. (click for complaint)

What is noticeable about the lawsuit is that the attorney who filed it is a very sober gentleman, a very skilled litigator with an excellent reputation.  He is not a gentleman who would waste time on a spurious claim. Number two, Fraud is the most difficult tort to prove, the damages from Fraud are not dischargeable under bankruptcy, and I bet you can count on a match stick the number of private non-profit schools in the United States that have a Fraud claim pending against them.

Again, a complete disgrace for the managers of the Jess Schwartz Abyss, and a complete disgrace for the Pardes Board for abrogating their responsibility to the school, to the Pardes Parents, and drinking the Cool Aid that was poured by the imitation tzadikkim who fancy themselves community leaders.  Why on earth would anyone running a school want to merge it with the detritus of JSA?  When you lie down with a dog, you wake up with fleas.

I really like and have friendships with many people on the Board of Pardes, and I think Jill Kessler is one of the finest and most caring educators in the country, but I am so angry at their collective stupidity as regards this merger.  This lawsuit will be settled, or it will go to trial, and it will cost JSA quite a bit of money, and any thought the bank will be okay with having the school sit empty, and that they will not foreclose, is going to vanish faster than a twinkie at a fat farm. Because realistically, the reserve funds that they were going to use to pay the mortgage are going to be devoted to litigation.

So there will be two options here: 1) Someone with a fat wallet will bail the school out and settle the case because they will not want their precious monument to themselves seized, sold at auction, and occupied by a non-Jewish enterprise, like a parochial school, or 2) These same “community leaders” will lean on the Federation to fund the settlement of the lawsuit, and the Federation, as is their pattern and practice, will again renege on more funding commitments made to our vulnerable populations, and to Israel.

How about a quick apology from the Pardes Board to the Pardes community for putting everyone through the idiocy of the merger, then opening up the financial books so we can begin to better understand what challenges the school is facing so that we can help the school, and let’s just get on with it?

Or, in the alternative, please send out another FAQ and tell us if it will still be called Jess Schwartz Academy if a christian parochial school gets hold of the JSA campus.  Will it still be called JSA, Our Lady of JSA, the Virgin of Guadalupe JSA, The Academy of the Immaculate Conception of the JSA.  Oh and uh what tefillah goes best with a Hail Mary?

As my youngest used to say when he was about 5,

Huggety Geshpuggety.