Holocaust-denying rabbi ousted from hotel

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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Holocaust naysayer ousted in New York

By MICHAL LANDO / Jerusalem Post / Jan 16, 2007
NEW YORK

Moshe Aryeh Friedman, a member of the Natorei Karta, who attended the 
Holocaust denial conference in Teheran last month, was asked to leave 
a hotel in Brooklyn over the weekend, where he was staying with his 
wife and four children. It was the latest in a string of protests 
against the anti-Zionist sect.

Friedman entered the Park House hotel in Borough Park on Wednesday 
using his wife's maiden name, hotel managers said. On Friday, 
Friedman was recognized by people in the neighborhood. By Friday 
afternoon, a small group of people had gathered outside the hotel on 
43rd St. to protest his presence.

When word reached hotel employees that Friedman was staying at the 
hotel, a manager called the New York Police Department to have him 
removed. But the police said they could not legally remove him, 
reported hotel manager Israel Tyberg.

"We told him to get out," Tyberg said. "We are Orthodox Jews and 
didn't want such a person in our hotel."

Some hotel guests left upon hearing that Friedman was staying there; 
others didn't come, said Tyberg. Employees posted a sign on the door 
saying the hotel was "not responsible for any guest staying at the 
Park House."

News spread throughout the community that Friedman was staying at the 
hotel, and several hundred demonstrators protested outside the hotel 
Saturday night, calling for his removal.

"I think that anybody who had gone through the Holocaust wouldn't 
want this person to stay on their property," Tyberg said. "It's about 
an ideology of what's right and what's wrong, and this was wrong. 
Nothing to do with Zionism, purely wrong."

Rumors were reported on Ynet Monday that Friedman's wife left him and 
fled Austria where they live to her family in Brooklyn. According to 
Ynet, Friedman's wife approached rabbis in Brooklyn to help her 
divorce her husband. But according to hotel staff, Friedman was at 
the hotel with his wife and children.

Friedman was removed with a police escort Saturday night when his 
reservation ended.

A group of protesters from the right-wing Zionist Defense 
Organization were allowed into the hotel late Saturday night to 
confirm that Friedman and his family had left.

Community members were incensed to hear that Friedman was in their 
neighborhood, said Zev Brenner, president and executive producer of 
Talkline Communications Network, a Jewish radio and television source.

"There is something wrong here that must be addressed, and the 
ultra-Orthodox need to deal with this," Brenner said. "The Natorei 
Karta find shelter and sustenance within the Orthodox community, and 
the community has been slow to recognize what they represent."