RABBI, INFANT'S FATHER ARRESTED FOR CHILD ABUSE

REDNECK SHERIFF RAIDS BRIS, MOHEL AND FATHER ARRESTED
By Ima Schmuck
　
THE YIDDISH GAZETTE
September 21, 2010
　
CLINTON, ARKANSAS – Sheriff Buford ‘Butch’ Jones announced the arrest last night of Rabbi Moshe Finkel and Samuel Goldstein on felony Child Abuse and Child Endangerment charges. Rabbi Finkel also faces a charge of Assault With A Deadly Weapon.
　
Sheriff Jones said his department received a call from Billy Bob McNutt who reported that a group of bearded men wearing long black coats and fur-brimmed black hats were over at his neighbor’s house performing some sort of satanic ritual. He believed they were making a human sacrifice because he could hear the blood-curdling screams of a baby coming from Goldstein’s house.
　
Deputies Matt Williams and Joe Luck arrived within two minutes of McNutt’s call. When they heard the baby’s screams, they kicked in the front door and found Goldstein holding an infant and Rabbi Finkel standing over the baby holding a bloody knife. According to the deputies, a group of men all clad in black surrounded the Rabbi and Goldstein while uttering what Williams and Luck believed to be some sort of satanic chants.
　
Butch Jones and two more of his deputies, two Clinton police officers and two Arkansas state troopers responded to a call for backup by deputies Williams and Luck who feared they had come across a dangerous cult.
　
Rabbi Finkel and Goldstein were arrested and the infant was rushed to Ozark Baptist Hospital by medical helicopter. After treatment for cuts to his penis, the six-day-old boy was turned over to a Child Protective Services case worker.

Butch Jones said that as soon as he got to the scene he realized the work of the devil was at hand. ‘As your sheriff, I know that the good Christian folk around these here parts do not wear hats inside someone else’s home.’
　
Rabbi Finkel told the Gazette that when he tried to explain that he and Goldstein were merely conducting a Brit milah [circumcision] as prescribed by Jewish law, Sheriff Jones told him ‘Hey buddy, I don’t care about no Brit-watchacallit cuz we ain't in New York. Hereabouts we’re in a Christian county where Jewish law don’t count for nothing.’ When he told Jones that he was holding the bloody knife because he was the Mohel [circumciser], the sheriff told him ‘We got way too many of them critters around these parts already and we sure don’t need no two-legged moles.’
　
Sarah Goldstein, the infants mother, informed the Gazette that Sheriff Jones took her aside and said, ‘Lookee here little lady, if I was you I would hire me a lawyer and git a divorce from that sorry child molesting husband of yours.’
　
After spending some seven hours in jail, Rabbi Finkel and Goldstein were released on $100,000 bail each.
　
Later in the day, as he stood with two FBI agents by his side, a red-faced District Attorney made a terse announcement that all charges against Rabbi Finkel and Samuel Goldstein were being dropped. He refused to take any questions.

However, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Crystal Pure announced that the infant would not be returned to the Goldsteins until a thorough child abuse investigation by her agency showed that the baby’s return would not place him in harm’s way.