The instant letter explains why Irwin Cotler's relationship with Steven Rambam precludes Mr. Cotler serving as Minister of Justice, to appreciate which requires an introduction to Steven Rambam.

Nature Throws Rambam a Curve Ball, and � Strike One!

Six-year-old Steven Rambam (AKA Stephen Rombom AKA Steven Paul Rombom) is removed from his family and institutionalized for eight years.

According to Robert I. Friedman

Investigative Journalist Robert I. Friedman Perhaps Rombom's tough guy obsession began in psychiatric institutions where he spent eight years of his youth, according to court documents.  Rombom denies he has ever been institutionalized.  Maybe his relationship with the JDL, which began when he was 12, gave him a channel to vent his considerable anger. Robert I. Friedman, Oy Vey, Make My Day, Village Voice, 22-Aug-1989, p. 16. Steven Rombom was a particularly tragic example of the sort of psychopaths Kahane attracted to the JDL.  The violence-prone youth, who, according to court records spent eight years in psychiatric institutions from the age of six, joined the JDL when he was twelve years old over the frantic objections of his doctors and social workers who called JDL officials, begging them not to allow Rombom to get involved in the militant organization. Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, From FBI Informant to Knesset Member, Lawrence Hill Books, Brooklyn, NY, 1990, p. 183.

According to court transcripts supplied by the Jewish Defense Organization

The following excerpts from a sentencing hearing corroborate the statements of Robert I. Friedman above to the effect that Steven Rambam really had been institutionalized � in the Pleasantville Cottage School, it will turn out � years earlier.

I ask the Cour to consider what I think would almost inevitably happen if Mr. Rombom is placed inside of an institution, institutions the inside of which he has already seen in his young life for about seven or eight years. Page 35,  www.ukar.org/martin/ramb35.pdf, originally at  jdo.org/rambam3.pdf.  "Cour" is in the original.

Your Honor is, suffice it to say, familiar with Mr. Rombom's rehabilitation from his viewpoint, which is what is critical to his rehabilitation.  He is in a home of loving parents.  Whatever emotional difficulties psychiatrists reading reports, not interviewing the people directly, as Dr. Bryskin did not, feel exists at home, as Dr. Collins has pointed out, Mr. Rombom has been separated from his home too long and for too many years, almost half his life from his home.  And that from a psychiatrict point of view and from a humane point of view I don't believe that can be used as a basis for removing him from the community. Your Honor, I would like to read to you three lines concerning a prognosis for rehabilitation of Mr. Rombom, and I quote: "As to extended extensive psychotherapy from which he can benefit does not require institutionalization, but he will need a plan for structure, social and academic experience concomitant with his treatment activity." Page 36,  www.ukar.org/rambam/exh-a3.jpg.  "Psychiatrict" is in the original.

But I know that this Court and the government and our society does not need to incarcerate Stephen Rombom at this critical time of his life, it does not need to place once again in an institution a young man who has already spent eight years of his life in one, since the age of six. I can just hope that society does not need to run the risk -f ruining the firm and committed progress he has been making and the type of realistic and viable program that all the psychiatrists and even this Court has indicated are necessary in this case. Page 39,  www.ukar.org/martin/ramb39.pdf, originally at  jdo.org/rambam4.pdf.  "-f" is in the original.

Concerning his initial involvement with the Jewish Defense League, I think the probation report, the personal part of it submitted to the Court, substantiates this.  Without belaboring the record, it is in the documents that were afforded to this Court at the time of the juvenile-adult status hearing.  As I recall, sir,  [42/43]  at the time Stephen Rombom became affiliated with the Jewish Defense League he was still in Pleasantville, and that the people in Pleasantville called the JDL to inform them and to remind them and to tell them of the potential risks that they were running in dealing with him at the time. Pages 42 and 43,  www.ukar.org/martin/ramb42.pdf and www.ukar.org/martin/ramb43.pdf, originally at  jdo.org/rambam1.pdf  and  jdo.org/rambam2.pdf.

School Or Psychiatric Facility?

But the question remains incompletely answered of whether the Pleasantville Cottage School is a school, or something closer to a psychiatric facility or a mental institution.  It is understandable that in the attempt to minimize stigmatizing its young inmates, Pleasantville tends to be referred to by the more euphemistic "Pleasantville Cottage School" or "residential treatment center"; however, for purposes of evaluating the severity of Steven Rambam's deficit, such euphemistic expressions might invite an underestimate, and the less delicate "psychiatric facility" or "mental institution" might be justified by such observations as the following:

• The Jewish Child Care Association (JCCA ) offers the historical factoid that in 1925, "A young psychiatric social worker, Julia Goldman, establishes the first psychiatric clinic in an American child care institution at Pleasantville Cottage School."  www.jewishchildcareny.com/about_jcca/1917.asp
  
  

• Jim Nininger, M.D., incoming president of the New York State Psychiatric Association writes that "I am now primarily in private practice, with a sub-specialty in geriatrics, and work two days a week at the Pleasantville Cottage School, a residential center in Westchester for troubled adolescents, mostly from the 'inner city.'"  www.nyspsych.org/pdf/bulletin/Bull698.pdf
  
  

• John A. Fogelman, M.D. lists as one of his positions "Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, Pleasantville Cottage School."  www.rfmh.org/whps/memdir.html
  
  

• The obituary for Irving Hershey reports that he "rose through the ranks of administration, eventually becoming director of institutions for retarded and disturbed children, such as the Pleasantville Cottage School [...]."  www.pcnr.com/News/2002/0320/Obituaries/059.html
  
  

• The William Randolph Hearst Foundations describe the Pleasantville Cottage School as "a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed youngsters."  hearstfdn.org/grants_social/soc_2001/gr_soc2001_j.html
  
  

• Kids Only Online describes the Pleasantville Cottage School as follows:
  

  Services available:  Counseling, Inpatient services/programs, Mental Health, Special Education/Additional Education, Special Services not listed
  
  Short description of resources and/or eligibility:  A therapeutic community for 197 children with emotional & family problems who require residential treatment.   PLEASANTVILLE DIAGNOSTIC CENTER 914-769-0164 Provides comprehensive short-term diagnosis & treatment for 23 boys during approximately two months of residence.  www.kidshelp.org/result.htm?all=True&page=524

• A 2002 incident at the Pleasantville Cottage School is described as follows, with initial reference being to Police Chief Louis Alagno:
  

  Alagno said the attack began shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday and continued for more than an hour inside Cottage 12, a girls residence at the 1075 Broadway complex run by the Jewish Child Care Association.
  

  During her ordeal, the 32-year-old counselor was punched, kicked, stomped and scratched by the girls before "they doused her with rubbing alcohol and set it on fire," Alagno said.  "They continued to beat her and then doused her face with chlorine bleach."
  
  They also cut her hair with scissors, beat her with a telephone and kicked her down two flights of steps, according to the charges read in court last night.  www.nyjournalnews.com/cottage/09cottage.html

• With reference to the above attack is made the following statement, reflective of what might be among the treatments that the inmates receive at this "residential treatment center":  "State Senator Spano: 'If we're overmedicating kids for the purpose of keeping them in a catatonic state then that's pretty scary and we can't allow that to happen.'"  abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WABC_021902_rtcentersinvest.html
  
  

• Ten years ago, the Pleasantville Cottage School set a local record of sorts:
  

  In 1994, a 13-year-old boy from Peekskill who lived at the Pleasantville Cottage School was charged with killing a 12-year-old resident.  Brian Edwards is believed to be the youngest person ever charged with murder in Westchester County.  www.nyjournalnews.com/cottage/09cottage.html

The purpose of the above is not to disparage the Pleasantville Cottage School, or to maliciously strip it of its right to euphemistic self-reference � it is, rather, to demonstrate that if Rambam's continuing denial that he was institutionalized is based on his perception of Pleasantville as no more than a school, then others are not obligated to share that perception, and are not deprived of their right to strip away his euphemism in situations where euphemism might be misleading, and to view Pleasantville as a psychiatric facility or as a mental institution.

Cured Or Still Ailing?

Rambam's first strike is crippling not because eight years of institutionalization were required to raise him to normalcy, but because eight years of institutionalization left Rambam still afflicted.  Thus, when Rambam had been long released from Pleasantville and could be found serving time in federal prison, we see that his probation report portrays him as continuing to need "long psychiatric treatment" and � despite the mitigation of his youth � as unsuitable for early release; and in the same passage, we discover Robert I. Friedman calling Rambam a "psychopath":

The JDL men were subsequently convicted and sent to prison.  Rombom copped a plea to transporting explosives across a state line and spent some 20 months in a federal prison in Tallahassee.  "Defendant Rombom needs long psychiatric treatment in a disciplined and structured environment," said his probation report.  "Recommended against early release." Rombom is a tragic example of the sort of psychopath Kahane attracted to the JDL.  Rombom joined the JDL as a youth over the frantic objections of his doctors and social workers � who called JDL officials and begged them not to allow someone as unstable as Rombom to get involved in the militant organization. Robert Friedman, Oy Vey, Make My Day, Village Voice, 22-Aug-1989, p. 16  www.ukar.org/rambam/friedm03.html

And following release from prison, incidents such as those described below are symptomatic of Rambam's continuing lack of emotional control and continuing predisposition to intimidation and violence.  Reference to Levy snapping is to Mordechai Levy opening fire upon Steven Rambam together with West Coast JDL boss Irv Rubin and Israeli army veteran Allan Klebanoff because he feared that the trio had come to take his life:

Later that year Rombom slammed a steaming bowl of soup into Levy's head at Bernstein's on the Lower East Side.  Rombom has admitted the attack in a phone conversation.  Author Dennis King, who was sitting at the table, says that Rombom then threatened King because he was friends with Levy.  King says he was threatened by Rombom a second time in a phone call last June 26.  [...] Only Levy knows what made him snap and open fire.  King, who does not condone the shooting, believes there is a rational reason.  "Based on my own experience of intensive harassment from Rombom, I can find it perfectly understandable how he snapped.  Only someone who has been attacked by bullies bent on your destruction month after month understands how that builds tremendous tension." Robert Friedman, Oy Vey, Make My Day, Village Voice, 22-Aug-1989, pp. 16 and 18  www.ukar.org/rambam/friedm03.html

The JDL/Mossad Throw Rambam a Spit Ball, and � Strike Two!

As has already been touched on above, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) recruited 12-year-old Steven Rambam while he was institutionalized in the Pleasantville Cottage School, not to teach him to eschew violence but to immerse him in violence; and not to turn him into a law-abiding citizen but into a terrorist; and not with the goal of outfitting him with a career, but with the predictable end of putting him in jail.

The Mossad takeover of the JDL, and thus of Steven Rambam's life, happened as follows:

� 182 � Meir Kahane drawing featured as frontispiece in Robert I. Friedman's book The False Prophet Kahane first gained national attention in the turbulent summer of 1968 when he founded the JDL, declaring it would protect Jews from black street crime and anti-Semitism.  But the militant Brooklyn-born rabbi achieved international celebrity in the winter of 1969 when he seized on an issue largely ignored by the American Jewish establishment � the plight of Soviet Jews.  By 1970 the JDL's bombing and shooting attacks against Soviet embassies in America and Europe were so numerous that, according to confidential State Department documents, President Richard Nixon became concerned that Kahane would wreck the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.  The JDL's campaign for Soviet Jewry gained the support of prominent union leaders, politicians, and wealthy Jewish philanthropists.  Little did they know that the JDL's guerrilla war against the Soviet Union was orchestrated by right-wing Mossad officers led by Israel's future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. The secret relationship was forged in December 1969 when Geula Cohen, who had just been elected to the Knesset as a member of Begin's Herut party, visited Kahane in his cramped JDL office on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.  "Why are you wasting your time fighting the shvartzers?" asked Cohen, who had dropped out of Begin's Irgun underground in the 1940s to fight with Shamir's more extreme Stern Gang because she found Begin "too mild." � 183 � During the next few months, Cohen, Shamir, and a group of Mossad officers and Jewish businessmen helped lay the groundwork for the JDL's violent campaign to publicize the plight of Soviet Jewry.  Cohen and Shamir calculated that the selective use of violence against Soviet targets in America and Europe would inevitably strain U.S.-Soviet relations.  They predicted that rather than risk the breakdown of détente, the Soviet Union would be forced to alleviate the crisis by freeing hundreds of thousands of Jews, who would redress the demographic imbalance caused when Israel swallowed the occupied territories with its large Arab population.  (Since the founding of the state of Israel, one of Mossad's prime directives has been to help bring Jews to Israel.  It has operated underground networks in a number of countries, including the Soviet Union and Ethiopia.) Robert I. Friedman, Zealots for Zion: Inside Israel's West Bank settlement movement, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswik NJ, 1992.

And as it proved to be the case that the prerequisite for success in terrorism was not at all a predisposition to violence, which Rambam did not lack, but rather a disciplined mind and emotional control, which is where Rambam fell short, Steven Rambam proved more eager than suited to the work that the Mossad gave him, and emerged as the weakest link in the terrorist chain � the FBI's recording Rambam's careless blabbing over the telephone led to the arrest of many of his co-conspirators and the flight to Israel of the rest, with what personal result for Rambam can be anticipated from his 05-Oct-1976 charge sheet, which groups the fourteen counts arising from the arrest of "Rombom, Steven Paul" on 06-Aug-1976 under the following seven categories:

1. Interstate transportation of firearms to commit felony
   
2. Assault on official with deadly weapon
   
3. Use of firearm to commit felony
   
4. Interstate transportation of explosives
   
5. Use of explosives
   
6. Use of explosives to commit felony
   
7. Possession of silencer
    www.ukar.org/rambsumm.pdf  originally at   jdo.org/rambam5.pdf 
   

Had Rambam been tried as an adult, his total term of imprisonment for consecutive service of maximum sentences on each count would have exceeded one hundred years  www.ukar.org/wallac05.html#sentence .  By "copping a plea," however, Rambam ultimately served only something like 20 months in federal prison in Tallahassee.  Rambam's failure to convince the U.S. attorney that he had been twice homosexually raped in prison dashed his hopes for an earlier release  www.ukar.org/wallac05.html#rape .

The CJC Throws Rambam a Knuckle Ball, and � Strike Three!

CJC facilitated the exchange of information dealing with suspected Nazi war criminals in Canada between private investigator, Steven Rambam, who gathered the material, and officials from the RCMP. Photograph and caption were originally on the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) web site at www.cjc.ca/warcrim.htm   Steven Rambam (center) is shown passing Fifty-Confessions Hoax documents to Irving Abella (right).  The man on the left is possibly a representative from the RCMP.

So, here was Steven Rambam, whom Nature had handed an eight-year stint in a psychiatric facility and lifelong handicaps to boot, and whom the JDL/Mossad had handed a 20-month sentence in a Federal prison, predisposed to violence, lacking self-discipline, having demonstrated no accomplishment in analyzing historical documents for purposes of detecting living criminality � and what did the Canadian Jewish Congress have to offer him in its turn?  Perhaps an invitation to imitate models of industry and integrity?  Not at all!  The Canadian Jewish Congress saw in hapless Steven Rambam an opportunity to throw him a knuckle ball � it offered him the opportunity to become the world's glitziest Nazi hunter, in fact a Nazi hunter of supernatural accomplishment, endowed with an uncanny ability to find Nazi war criminals where others saw none, and gifted with a miraculous ability to entice these ubiquitous Nazis to confess their crimes into his hidden microphone.

In other words, the Canadian Jewish Congress decided to make Steven Rambam the stooge in its Fifty-Confessions Hoax.  It is within this CJC morass that Steven Rambam struggles with little hope of extrication to this day.

He Who Pays The Piper Calls The Tune

Given the CJC apprehension that the Fifty-Confessions Hoax would be discovered and exposed, steps were taken to maximize the probability that the blame would fall on the stooge.  That's what stooges are for.  And so, Rambam was taught to recite that he had toured Canada for five years searching for Nazis on his own initiative and at his own expense � he cites half a million dollars expense at one point � and Rambam did recite this at every opportunity, apparently unconcerned that what he was saying was unbelievable, and seemingly oblivious to the jeopardy that his claim exposed him to, and to the exculpation that it provided his sponsors.  Other conspirators echoed the if-anything-goes-wrong-blame-the-stooge refrain:

(Footage of Canadian flag; Steven Rambam) WALLACE: (Voiceover)  The traditional cold calm of Canada has been shaken by, of all things, a meddling American, an unorthodox private detective from Brooklyn named Steven Rambam.  For two years, mostly at his own expense, he's been tracking down Canada's alleged war criminals after getting their names from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem. Canada's Dark Secret, CBS News, 60 Minutes, 02-Feb-1997, p. 1  www.ukar.org/wallac05.html

Rambam said he and his company were not hired by anyone to investigate war criminals and is out-of-pocket $500,000 for the work, including $50,000 on the Viel trial alone. Although Rambam co-operated with Canadian Jewish Congress in the late '90s in publicizing the war criminal issue, "the only honorarium I received was $300 for a speaking fee and I did not receive a penny from any other Jewish organization." Janice Arnold, Nazi hunter blasts government, commumity for inaction, Canadian Jewish News, Internet Edition, 31-May-2001  www.cjnews.com/pastissues/01/may31-01/front3.asp  "Commumity" is in the original.

However, the Fifty-Confessions Hoax conspirators either had not agreed on a single story, or else could not stick to their agreement, because discrepancies popped up everywhere.  For example, evidence leaked out that the Fifty-Confessions Hoax was initially a Jerusalem Post project which the Canadian Jewish Congress joined only later:

CJC worked with American private investigator Steven Rambam.  He had first met with CJC officials in the latter part of 1996 after he collaborated on a Jerusalem Post story exposing Canada as a safe haven for Nazis. Formerly, but no longer, on the CJC web site at www.cjc.ca/dais/past-issues/dais2-4-3yr-report.htm

Jerusalem Post involvement is alluded to repeatedly, but in the instance below without indication whether the dozen encounters that Jerusalem Post personnel attended were Rambam's earliest, which might encourage the hypothesis that Rambam's fledgling flights were conducted with his Israeli instructors in tow:

Since early 1994, this 39-year-old private investigator has been tracking down Nazi henchmen in Canada and, under a false cover identity, meeting with them in person.  Reporters Robert Sarner and Steve Leibowitz joined Rambam separately for about a dozen of these encounters. Robert Sarner and Steven Leibowitz, Under the Maple Leaf, Jerusalem Post, 22-Nov-1996, as edited by Steven Rambam on his Pallorium web site at  pallorium.com/ARTICLES/art06.html

And from out of nowhere an unintroduced "Joey Schachter" pops up not only as Rambam's co-worker, but as a sharer of costs.  Also, in one breath, we are treated to the schizophrenic utterance that "Rambam has not received a dime for his work" and yet is funded by the Weltman Foundation and by "a New York businessman":

Rambam has made countless trips to Canada over the past two years, crisscrossing the country, traveling to big cities and obscure small towns in virtually every province.  It is not unusual for him to drop in on several suspected Nazis in one day.  In each case, he usually enters by himself equipped with a concealed listening device which records and transmits to his associate, Joey Schachter, who monitors proceedings in a nearby car and is ready to intervene if anything goes askew.  He has never been attacked, although he has occasionally sensed a potential threat from family members who entered during interviews. Since the beginning of the investigation, Rambam has not received a dime for his work.  He and Schachter initially paid all costs.  Several months ago, they received funding from the American-based Jeff Weltman Foundation, which supports various Jewish causes.  In addition, a New York businessman who asked not to be identified has helped underwrite some of the costs. Robert Sarner and Steven Leibowitz, Under the Maple Leaf, Jerusalem Post, 22-Nov-1996, as edited by Steven Rambam on his Pallorium web site at  pallorium.com/ARTICLES/art06.html

It must have amazed even the CJC to discover that however incredible were the many assertions denying Rambam's sponsorship and funding, the press and the world smiled approvingly, blind to all implausibilities and incongruities, demanding no disclosure of that whose existence had been denied, and most notably failing to ask whether this might not be another Mossad stampede-the-Jews-to-Israel project, related to the Mossad stampede-the-Jews-to-Israel bombing project described above in whose service Rambam had spent 20 months in federal prison, and which stampede-the-Jews-to-Israel bombing project Robert I. Friedman had subsumed under the generalization that "Since the founding of the state of Israel, one of Mossad's prime directives has been to help bring Jews to Israel."

In other words, if Mossad can be recognized as bombing targets throughout the United States and Europe to herd Jews to Israel, then it cannot be rejected as inconceivable that Mossad would take less extreme measures to promote the same end, such less extreme measures as making Jews feel they will only be able to avoid drowning in a sea of Nazis by emigrating to Israel.  The recognition that the Mossad's chief purpose is to orchestrate Jew-stampeding, and that Rambam had already been employed in an earlier Jew-stampeding project, and that Rambam lacked both material and intellectual resources to solo undercover for five years of Nazi hunting � several such considerations stand in the way of crediting the claim that the Fifty-Confessions Hoax was Rambam's brain-child, was funded out of his own pocket, and was implemented under the guidance of his previously-invisible Nazi-hunting expertise.

The Canadian Jewish Congress Can Be Seen Handing The Money To The Piper

However, although the Fifty-Confessions Hoax was undoubtedly conceived and sponsored by people other than Rambam, people further removed from Rambam than the Canadian Jewish Congress, it is also true that Rambam's immediate support was transmitted through the Canadian Jewish Congress.  Thus, it was Irving Abella (then the CJC War Crimes Chair), and Bernie Farber (then the CJC National Director of Community Relations), who supported Rambam in the 60 Minutes broadcast to 30 million viewers, Canada's Dark Secret.  And the same trio appeared again in a PBS broadcast to 24 million viewers, The Editors.  That the on-the-spot sponsor for the Fifty-Confessions Hoax was the Canadian Jewish Congress is demonstrated in the following two excerpts from its web site, where the CJC can be seen staging one event after another in its effort to broaden Rambam's exposure and to enhance his credibility:

More than ten years after the release of the Report of the Deschènes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada and the subsequent passage of legislation to deal with these murderers, the dossier took on an extraordinarily high profile in 1997.  CJC worked with American private investigator Steven Rambam.  He had first met with CJC officials in the latter part of 1996 after he collaborated on a Jerusalem Post story exposing Canada as a safe haven for Nazis.  He obtained several taped confessions, which CJC handed over to the RCMP.  Several months later [02-Feb-1997] CJC's War Crimes Committee chair, Professor Irving Abella, and National Director of Community Relations Bernie Farber joined Rambam on the CBS program "60 Minutes."  A few months later, the same three individuals were part of a panel discussion on the syndicated program "The Editors," broadcast to 24 million people on PBS stations across North America. CJC and Rambam followed this up with a series of activities in Ottawa to mark the 10th anniversary of the Deschênes Report.  This included a luncheon meeting with Parliamentarians and a press conference in the House of Commons [19-Mar-1997].  That same evening, a community-wide program was held at Ottawa's Beth Shalom Synagogue.  More than 500 people were in attendance at the event, which also included the presentation of a certificate of merit to former Federal Justice Department War Crimes Unit Deputy Director Arnold Fradkin.  Rambam was a keynote speaker. Political advocacy continued when CJC led a delegation of Canada's top religious leaders to a meeting with then-Justice Minister Allan Rock to discuss the Nazi war criminals dossier.  Rabbi Reuven Bulka, chair of CJC's Religious and Interreligious Affairs Committee and leader of the delegation, noted the historic significance of the meeting. Throughout May, rallies, vigils and other public manifestations took place in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Saskatoon and Winnipeg under the central theme "Nazi War Criminals in Canada: One Is Too Many."  In Montreal, some 2,000 people turned out at a prominent downtown location, where Rambam was presented with a certificate of merit [05-May-1997].  Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem addressed the Toronto event, while the former director of the Office of Special Investigations (the American war-crimes unit), Neal Sher, spoke in Halifax. Excerpted from, but no longer at, the CJC web site at www.cjc.ca/dais/past-issues/dais2-4-3yr-report.htm.  CJC misspelling of Deschênes as Deschènes was in the original.

CJC MEETS WITH RAMBAM, HANDS OVER WAR CRIMES TAPES TO RCMP MONTREAL, DECEMBER 19, 1996 � Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) today facilitated the exchange of information dealing with suspected Nazi war criminals in Canada between a private investigator who gathered the material and officials of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) War Crimes Unit. Working with two reporters for the Jerusalem Post, detective Steven Rambam of New York secured taped confessions from some 50 suspected Nazi war criminals.  He handed over copies of the tapes, as well as additional documentation, to the RCMP and CJC War Crimes Committee Chair Professor Irving Abella. Mr. Rambam and Professor Abella were later joined at a news conference by the authors of the Jerusalem Post exposé, Robert Sarner and Steve Leibowitz, as well as Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office Director Efraim Zuroff and CJC National Director of Community Relations Bernie M. Farber. Professor Abella expressed his disappointment that the directors of the Federal Justice Department and RCMP War Crimes Units failed to attend the meeting, as originally promised.  However, he expressed his hope that the federal government will do its part to move proceedings along.  "I think we must be fair and credit the present government and Justice Minister Allan Rock for bringing forward eight new cases over the last two years," he said.  "But there still must be more fire in the belly from the RCMP and the Department of Justice units which are charged with handling these files." Professor Abella stated that if the RCMP and the Department of Justice are not prepared to deal with this evidence promptly, CJC will have to consider other action such as civil proceedings.  "Something very unique has happened," said Professor Abella.  "For the first time since the end of World War II we have an individual in Steven Rambam who has invested his time and energy to uncover evidence and taped confessions which our own government over the last 50 years has seemingly failed to do." Excerpted from, but no longer at, the CJC web site at www.cjc.ca/Rambam.htm.

In its delight at how quickly and effortlessly it had been able to clothe Rambam in an "international reputation," the CJC spoke of its golden boy with a respect bordering on veneration:

CJC representatives spent the day in Ottawa accompanied by American private investigator Steven Rambam, who in recent months has gained an international reputation in tracking down suspected war criminals. Canadian Jewish Congress, CJC UNVEILS NEW INITIATIVES ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DESCHENES COMMISSION, 21-Mar-1997, formerly, but no longer, at   www.cjc.ca/Newsviews/nr/1996-97/pr970321.htm

Irving Abella (on Steven Rambam's left in the image above, making a show of receiving Fifty-Confessions documents) was particularly unreserved in fawning over Rambam's performance, as has already been demonstrated above, and as is reinforced below:

Prof. ABELLA:  It's a remarkable story that somebody can walk across the border with a telephone book and a list and find war criminals that our Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been unable to find for 50 years. Canada's Dark Secret, CBS News, 60 Minutes, 20-Jul-1997, p. 8  www.ukar.org/wallac05.html

"Steve Rambam found more war criminals in a few months than the RCMP did in 50 years," Abella said. Mark Reynolds, Irving Abella lecture confronts war criminals, Concordia's Thursday Report, 13-Jan-2000  pr.concordia.ca/ctr/archives/is130100/art29.html

The Fifty-Confessions Project Became the Fifty-Confessions Hoax

How many confessions did Steven Rambam actually tape-record?  Because the Canadian Jewish Congress above claims fifty ("Steven Rambam of New York secured taped confessions from some 50 suspected Nazi war criminals"), I refer to the project as the Rambam-Abella Fifty Confessions Hoax.  However, larger numbers have been put into circulation, though the criterion of what is being counted is vague and shifting.  Two of these higher claims beam their disinformation to Internet surfers even today:

In total, Rambam said he interviewed 62 people in Canada he considers guilty of Nazi war crimes, some of whom gave him detailed accounts of what they did. Janice Arnold, Nazi hunter blasts government, commumity for inaction, Canadian Jewish News, Internet Edition, 31-May-2001  www.cjnews.com/pastissues/01/may31-01/front3.asp

In 1997 he exposed the presence in Canada of 162 Nazi war criminals and also conducted investigations which resulted in the prosecution and conviction of war criminals on murder charges. H2K2  www.h2k2.net/display_grid.khtml?who=56

Whether the Hoax claims 50 confessions or 62 or 162, we know that it is a hoax because over the eight or so years since the tape recordings were made, not a single one of them has been relied upon in a court decision, and not a single one has ever been published, and debate now has narrowed to the question of whether Rambam recovered even a single confession, the leading contender for the role of sole confessor being the late Antanas Kenstavicius who appears (in snippets that listeners recollect hearing on the tape) to describe WW II executions.  However, without hearing the full recording, it is impossible to tell whether Kenstavicius is describing scenes that were merely common knowledge, or that he read about in a book, or saw in a film, or learned from an eyewitness, or had attended unwillingly and as a non-participant, or that were legal and that he participated in non-culpably � or that were war crimes and that he participated in culpably.  In the absence of context, the snippets offered cannot be considered a confession, or even inculpatory, and the refusal of the owners of the audiotape to release complete and unedited copies, or even copies of substantial portions, invites the explanation that they are concealing evidence that even the Kenstavicius statements do not qualify as a confession.  The collapse of the Fifty-Confessions Hoax into doubt that Rambam had elicited even a single confession is summed up in the words of Efraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem:

[Steven] Kotler also makes the mistake of taking everything Rambam tells him at face value as if it were Torah from Sinai.  Thus, for example, it is a little hard to take seriously his assertion that "Rambam went undercover in Canada for five years," (even Rambam admits he is only a part-time Nazi hunter) or to accept his figures.  In fact, despite repeated requests for copies of his interviews or at least the supposed confessions, I have never received a single page and have only heard one taped interview � the one with Antanas Kenstavicius, whose name and home town Rambam received from me personally.  In fact, I strongly doubt whether the material he claims to have found is anywhere near as incriminating as he would have us all believe.  In that respect, the results are very indicative.  Not a single prosecution has been initiated in Canada based on Rambam�s "evidence" [...]. Efraim Zuroff quoted in the Lubomyr Prytulak letter to Steven Rambam, Efraim Zuroff doesn't believe you either, 11-Jun-2003  www.ukar.org/rambam09.html

Irwin Cotler Collaboration With Steven Rambam

Having been President of the Canadian Jewish Congress 1980-1983, Irwin Cotler may be supposed to be concerned with the workings of the organization and the achievement of its goals, and having been General Counsel during the years of the Fifty-Confessions Hoax, he may be supposed to have at least watched the Hoax planned and executed, and surely would have been asked to comment on its legality and ethics, and surely would have been expected to estimate its probability of success and the repercussions in case of various eventualities.

But on top of that, Irwin Cotler had a vital personal motive for winning public belief that Rambam had discovered large numbers of Nazi war criminals � that is, one of Cotler's favorite proposals over the years has been to increase the volume of Nazi war crimes prosecutions as a means of deciding historical questions (which is to say, one of his favorite proposals has been to employ the justice system as a tool of indoctrination), as I discussed in my letter to him of 13-Mar-2004  www.ukar.org/cotler/cotler01.html, and as is exemplified in his statement:

"[U]nless we prosecute individuals, some people will say that since there are no criminals, there were no crimes, and therefore no Holocaust.  Every time we bring a Nazi war criminal to justice we strike a blow against the Holocaust-deniers." Irwin Cotler quoted in Ernie Meyer, Human Rights Activist: 'Set Up A Nazi War Crimes Unit', Jerusalem Post, 02-Jan-1989.

However, Cotler could win broad support for his proposal to expand the volume of prosecution only if Rambam succeeded in first demonstrating that large numbers of plausible suspects were available to be prosecuted.  Thus, winning public belief in the Fifty Confessions was essential to the realization of Irwin Cotler's most urgent dream.

That Irwin Cotler did dirty his hands in the Fifty-Confessions Hoax, and that he did interact directly with Steven Rambam, is evidenced by the following Canadian Jewish News statement which has Rambam delivering Hoax files to Irwin Cotler:

Rambam, who went undercover in 1996 to obtain taped confessions from what he describes as mass killers of Jews during World War II who live openly in Canada, said unless there is significant movement on three files he turned over to Montreal MP Irwin Cotler, "it is pointless for me to continue.  I'm banging my head against a brick wall."  [...]  The three files he gave Cotler included those on two men from whom Rambam says he obtained taped confessions, while posing as "Professor Romano" doing historical research.  He named them and gave their addresses. Janice Arnold, Nazi hunter blasts government, commumity for inaction, Canadian Jewish News, Internet Edition, 31-May-2001  www.cjnews.com/pastissues/01/may31-01/front3.asp   Bold emphasis added.

Rambam's going out of his way to announce publicly the exact individual at the Canadian Jewish Congress to whom he had delivered files may have brought two advantages: (1) that collaborating with "Montreal MP Irwin Cotler" lent prestige and credibility to Steven Rambam, and (2) at a time when the curtain had not yet been drawn back on Wizard-of-Brooklyn Steven Rambam, his association with Irwin Cotler lent a reciprocal prestige to Cotler.  The public association of Rambam with Cotler, then, may have aimed to achieve a mutual bootstrapping to new heights of their prestige.  However, it was their shared misfortune that they were unable to anticipate eventual exposure and disgrace of what was, after all, a primitive fraud.

Steven Rambam Defames Canada

Steven Rambam does not merely spur Canada's war crimes unit to foolish and harmful and Charter-violating action, he also seizes every opportunity to besmirch Canada's good name:

"If you are a war criminal, Canada is your refuge of choice.  That is for sure." Montreal Gazette, 27-Nov-1996, Final Edition, p. A14

"Canada is where the Nazis are," Rambam says.  "Canada is the unknown haven for Nazis.  Everybody knows about Argentina, but nobody knows about Canada." Ottawa Citizen, 15-Jan-1997, p. A13

"Canada is a place of refuge for the scum of the earth." Ottawa Citizen, 03-May-1997, p. A1

"Canada has become an old-age home for Nazi war criminals.  The lesson is that if you killed Jews, you have nothing to fear living here," Rambam said.  [...]  "The Canadian government is fooling you, lying to you, when it says it is zealously pursuing war criminals," he said. Janice Arnold, Nazi hunter blasts government, commumity for inaction, Canadian Jewish News, Internet Edition, 31-May-2001  www.cjnews.com/pastissues/01/may31-01/front3.asp

"People who killed 850,000 Jews came to Canada, and were welcomed with open arms." Canadian Jewish News, 11-Oct-2001, p. 32

"The Canadians are scum." Kim Lunman, Ottawa seeks to deport man, 83: Canadian citizen with alleged Nazi past accused of concentration camp atrocities, Globe and Mail Online, 06-Mar-2004, p. A6  www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040306/WARCRIME06/TPNational/TopStories

Were these harsh pronouncements founded on Rambam's actually having discovered some substantial number of Nazi war criminals living in Canada, then the pronouncements might have to be endured as stinging, but deserved, criticism.  When, however, Rambam is unable to produce even a single confession to back them up, then they must be viewed as emotional outpourings or as the disinformation of a subversive bent on destruction.

There are few people who travel to Canada displaying a stronger record of stirring up the forces of division and destabilization, or working more assiduously to blacken the Canadian government and the Canadian people, than does Steven Rambam.  It follows that Steven Rambam should be denied future entry into Canada.

And it follows from the CJC hosting and promoting Steven Rambam, that there is no Canadian organization more hell-bent on sullying Canada's image and lowering Canada's international prestige, and no organization more committed to stirring up the forces of chaos, then the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Why Irwin Cotler Can't Be Justice Minister

First Complaint: Irwin Cotler Participated in the Fifty-Confessions Hoax

Irwin Cotler allied himself with those who misled the Canadian people with Wizard-of-Brooklyn Steven Rambam and his Fifty Confessions, where anyone who cared to draw back the curtain would have been able to see that the Wizard was nothing better than a violence-prone psychopath and convicted terrorist with a reputation for mendacity, and who had not a single confession to show for all his chatting with aging Canadian immigrants.  The lie of the Fifty Confessions � promoted by Irwin Cotler together with Steven Rambam, Irving Abella, Bernie Farber, and the Canadian Jewish Congress � was provocative, inflammatory, and damaging, not only to the individuals targetted and to the ethnic groups that they were perceived to represent, but to Canadian unity and security.  Disqualification from the post of Minister of Justice is one of the prices that must be paid for having participated in an act of such egregious Public Mischief:

PUBLIC MISCHIEF / Punishment 140. (1) Every one commits public mischief who, with intent to mislead, causes a peace officer to enter on or continue an investigation by
	(a)	making a false statement that accuses some other person of having committed an offence;
	(b)	doing anything intended to cause some other person to be suspected of having committed an offence that the other person has not committed, or to divert suspicion from himself;
	(c)	reporting that an offence has been committed when it has not been committed; or
	(d)	reporting or in any other way making it known or causing it to be made known that he or some other person has died when he or that other person has not died.
(2) Every one who commits public mischief
	(a)	is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or
	(b)	is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

Second Complaint: Irwin Cotler Flouts the Charter Guarantee of Equality Before the Law

To the complaint of Cotler's participation in the Fifty-Confessions Hoax must be added the complaint that he is a leading advocate of the flouting of the Canadian Charter § 15(1) guarantee of equality before the law, a flouting that I have outlined in my previous four letters to you, and which is summed up in the concluding sentence of the last letter: "As Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has throughout his career placed himself in the vanguard of the Charter-violating misallocation of Canadian war-crimes resources, he will forever be a magnet for criticism, a liability to your administration, and a disgrace to Canadian justice."  The Charter violation most relevant here is Jews being given blanket immunity from prosecution for war crimes regardless of at what date and in what place and in what conflict and on which side, and no matter how conclusive the inculpatory evidence; and is the Canadian war crimes unit being instead put to the demeaning and unworthy task of particularly targetting Ukrainians to prosecute for conjectured immigration infractions of half a century ago, as has been discussed in my following four letters to you:

• 10-Mar-2004  What kind of Justice Minister have you appointed?  www.ukar.org/martin/martin01.html
• 14-Mar-2004  American war crimes  www.ukar.org/martin/martin02.html
• 15-Mar-2004  Italian War Crimes  www.ukar.org/martin/martin03.html
• 16-Mar-2004  Still more Jewish war crimes  www.ukar.org/martin/martin04.html

Irwin Cotler is an advocate of what Noam Chomsky calls "the familiar Stalinist-fascist doctrine that the State has the right to determine historical truth and to punish deviation from it," which is to say that Irwin Cotler advocates that historical truth not be discovered through scholarly secular analysis, but rather that it be theocratically dictated by a small group of which he happens to be a member, then enforced by the government through criminal prosecution, as I have documented in the following letters:

• To Ed Morgan    28-Jan-2004  Canadian Jewish Congress Fanaticism Infects the University of Toronto  www.ukar.org/morgan/morgan02.html
• To Irwin Cotler  13-Mar-2004  Who's afraid of holocaust denial?  www.ukar.org/cotler/cotler01.html