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Friday December 8, 2006

Shorts: U.S.

Sotheby selling Amsterdam Judaica

Sotheby’s annual sale of Judaica in New York on Dec. 13 includes a collection of 18th-century ritual silver objects from the Jewish community of Amsterdam and an 18th-century decorated manuscript honoring physician and poet Dr. Isaac Luzzato.

A pair of rimmonim (Torah finials) with bells made by Willem Rosier in 1767 is expected to go for $100,000 to $150,000. Two other pairs of finials made between 1750 and 1770 have estimated values of $80,000 to $120,000.

A pair of silver scrollwork finials by Pieter Jan van Hoven from 1723 has a lower estimate of $40,000 to $60,000.

Rabbi caught on Dateline gets maximum sentence

A Washington, D.C., rabbi who was on the leadership of a national education group and was caught in a child sex sting, was sentenced to more than six years in prison.

David Kaye, formerly a vice president at PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values, resigned last year after he was caught trying to solicit sex from someone he assumed to be a 13-year-old boy. Kaye had initiated discussions in an online chat room with someone from an Internet watchdog group posing as the youngster and working for NBC’s Dateline program.

Kaye was discovered when he arrived at a house for what he assumed would be a sexual encounter. On Dec. 1, Judge James Cacheris of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., sentenced Kaye to the maximum recommended 78 months. —jta

Seattle shooting hero gives birth to baby boy

Dayna Klein, whose act of defiance halted a shooting spree at the Jewish Federation in Seattle, gave birth to a baby Nov. 28.

Klein was at the Seattle federation July 28 when a gunman attacked, killing a woman. Shot in the arm and five months pregnant, Klein crawled to her desk, picked up the phone and dialed 911.

She convinced him to speak to the operator, and is credited with the safe release of the rest of the staff.

Klein named her newborn son Charley Paz, which means “peace” in Spanish. —jta

Government pair joined under chuppah

A Jewish congressman married a top Bush administration anti-Semitism official.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), 52, married Lisa Kaplan, 34, deputy director of the State Department’s Office on Global Anti-Semitism, in Malibu, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 3. —jta

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