Criminal Enterprises: Pornography. Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies, Eastern Kentucky University.

"Of the individuals indicted by the federal government in the MIPORN [Miami Pornography] operation, [Jewish porn mogul] Reuben Sturman was clearly the most important. Sturman presided over his business enterprises from his Sovereign News Company, headquartered in Cleveland.

Sovereign News was housed in a three-story, red-brick building, surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire and protected by the most modern and sophisticated electronic surveillance devices money can buy (Potter, 1986; Satchell, 1979). Sturman controlled pornography distribution warehouses in Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Denver, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Detroit. In addition, he was the principle owner of between 300 and 800 retail pornography stores around the country (May and Hosenball, 1981).

Sturman's Sovereign News Empire dominated the pornography industry and created an environment in which smaller operators and their distributors were dependent upon Sovereign News for their survival. A confidential FBI memorandum on the pornography industry said that [Sturman's business practices] have included the strong-arm shakedowns of other dealers, distributors, and suppliers throughout the United States, particularly on the West Coast."

Business Booms in Jail for Our Top Pornographer, Sydney Morning Herald [Australia], January 30, 1995

"An American criminal, David Sturman, whose father was once the largest distributor of hard-core pornography in the world, has been able to gain a substantial slice of the Australian pornography industry while serving a jail sentence in California. By using Australians to act as owners of his businesses in Sydney and Canberra, Sturman avoided probity checks which are essential in gaining a licence to operate. Two years ago, Sturman and his American partner, Mark Franks, set up a group of companies to control the importation, sale and distribution of pornographic videos from outlets such as the Adam and Eve shop in Canberra."

Ruined Reps. Salon.com, June 7, 2000

"Israeli porn producers are hiring actors who look like Egyptian stars ... According to the Nasserist Al-Arabi weekly publication ... film producers are tracking down actors who look like current Egyptian stars, and using them to shoot porn flicks in Israel. The films are then imported to Egypt and screened for paying customers.

Appeal is broad for such materials, because Egyptian cinema is the most popular in the Middle East. Al-Arabi said the goal of the porn films was to 'tarnish the reputation of Egyptian film stars.' The original actors are, of course, not pleased with the alternative personas that have been handed to them ... Yusra Alawi told reporters she is asking her attorney to obtain copies of the films and to pursue legal action against those responsible."

Ron Jeremy: Porn Buddha. Austin Arts Downtown, May-June 2001

"People call Jeremy addicted (to food), a tightwad, a clown, a spotlight hound and a man who can maintain an erection longer than any man in pornography. He claims not to use Viagra. He was born Ron Hyatt into a Jewish family who don't seem too put off by his ultimate career choice, although after the first porn film, his dad told Ron not to use his last name ... We are talking about a man who can count a film called Blow it Out Your Ass, as a typical title among the 1600 or so films he has appeared in."

Meet A Nice Jewish Porn Star Ron Jeremy looks more like your Uncle Moe than a sex god, By Naomi Pfefferman, Jewsweek

"'I'm just a nice Jewish boy with one vice,' says Queens native Ron Jeremy. 'Twenty-three years of porn films.' Scott J. Gill's documentary 'Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy,' which opens in select cities this month, chronicles the life and times of the unlikeliest Jew in the world - and the unlikeliest porn star.

The 48-year-old Jeremy dotes on his family. They dote on him. His dad's a physicist. His brother's a Harvard-educated executive. Most everyone else in the family has at least a master's degree. Jeremy earned his master's in special education from Queens College in part to help his disabled mother.

He looks more like your Uncle Moe than a sex god. But while he's not so easy on the eyes (he's nicknamed 'The Hedgehog' because he's short, fat and hairy), he's been paid huge sums to bed more gorgeous women than James Bond. Gill's hilarious film - in which Jeremy fans jubilantly declare, 'He's Jewish!' - stands apart from other movies on the porn biz that have emerged in the past decade ... At its core, the flick poses the question, 'How did a hammy kid from Flushing become the most recognized male figure in adult film?'

Answers begin to emerge when the documentary shows home movies of the young Jeremy (born Ron Jeremy Hyatt) mugging for the camera while opening Chanukah presents. 'He's always been a performer,' says his sister. 'From the time he was in elementary school ... he always wanted to be the center of attention' ...

His family wasn't thrilled with his career choice, but staunchly supported his First Amendment rights when a film-related bust forced him to fight in court (it was illegal then to film porn in Los Angeles). 'Jewish families tend to be more liberal than Christian ones,' says the performer, citing the preponderance of Jewish men in porn. 'They aren't obsessed by the fear of the devil or going to hell' ...

The garrulous Jeremy - who hopes to wed his girlfriend in a synagogue and raise their kids Jewish - is momentarily silent when asked how he'd feel if he had a daughter who wanted to do porn."

Rebel without Clothes. New Haven Advocate.

"To many people, Nina Hartley would appear to be the embodiment of contradiction: a feminist who's also a veteran porn star and damn proud of it. Further confounding stereotypes, she's a public speaker as comfortable in a college lecture hall as on a strip club stage and a politically aware progressive -- a 'third-generation socialist,' she called herself in a wide-ranging 1989 interview in Shmate, a now-defunct progressive Jewish journal.

She's a 1985 graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.S. in nursing. Magna cum laude, at that. She entered the sex business in 1982, working as a stripper at a San Francisco club while she was in college. Hartley, who estimates she has appeared in 360 movies or videos, made her first film in 1984 ... Hartley's emergence as one of porn's top stars coincided with a burgeoning public debate over the medium ...

The opinionated and articulate Hartley entered the fray and has become the foremost spokesperson for women working in the porn industry.

Brazilian Police Stake Out Diplomat Accused of Running Kiddie-Porn Ring.

Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2000

"Brazilian police continued to surround the Israeli consulate in Rio de Janeiro in the belief that Israeli vice-consul in Rio Aryeh Scher, wanted on suspicion of running a child pornography ring, had taken refuge there.

However Foreign Ministry officials said Scher has been en route to Israel for the past two days. Scher, who was at one point consul-general in Rio, was declared a fugitive by Brazilian authorities after a search of his apartment on Tuesday yielded what police officials described as evidence it was used for the manufacture of pornographic material, some of them involving underage girls ...

Brazilian authorities notified the Israeli embassy of plans to revoke Scher's diplomatic immunity on Tuesday, prior to the search. By the time police were able to obtain a warrant to search Scher's penthouse, the vice-consul was already on his way back to Israel, where he will face a Foreign Ministry inquiry ...

The investigation that culminated in the search of Scher's apartment began when a 17-year-old girl accused Georges Schteinberg, a 40-year-old Hebrew teacher of using her as a model in pornographic pictures and of distributing them on the Internet. Photographs of nude minors posed on a car with diplomatic plates were discovered in a search of Schteinberg's residence earlier in the week, in addition to massive quantities of pornographic material. Police then traced the car in the pictures back to Scher."

Brother Posts Bail in Porn Case, San Ramon Valley Times, January 5, 2002

"FEDERAL OFFICIALS SUSPECT A WALNUT CREEK MAN OF BEING A MAJOR DISTRIBUTOR OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY FROM RUSSIA.

A Walnut Creek man accused of being the 'best customer' of Russian child pornography kingpins is now himself suspected of being a 'major distributor' of illegal sexual materials, federal officials disclosed Friday.

As the investigation of Seth Bekenstein, 39, continues to evolve, authorities are diving deeper into the world of a man they believe trafficked in vast amounts of kiddie porn, said Elise Becker, an assistant U.S. attorney. 'At this time, we do actually think he is a major distributor both in the United States and abroad,' Becker told Magistrate Wayne Brazil during a bail hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Oakland. 'This has been his life for the past year.'"

Jewish Porn, World Union of Jewish Students

"After things like Jewish calendar, Jewish singles, Jewish dating, and Jewish festivals comes 'Jewish porn' in the list of top search keywords that GoTo.com provide. That is to say that 1000s of people are searching for Jewish porn. Why? ... Sam Stern is a guy. A guy who went on Young Judea year course in the early 90s. He lives in LA, spends his time making porn movies starring himself, and selling them on E-Bay. The guy is quite philosophical about his calling. Talks a lot about the strangeness of making porn on Yom Kippur, bits of guilt in the background, that sort of thing. Although mostly it really does seem that he is just kind of glad that he can make a living and have sex with porn stars. So, for circumcised hard-core porn, with a Jew in, find Sam."

Former N.J. Rabbi Admits Having Child Pornography, Newsday, February 26, 2002

"The former rabbi of a Morris County synagogue pleaded guilty Tuesday to having child pornography on his temple computer. Juda Mintz Jr., who now lives in Georgia, faces 27 to 33 months in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 ...

Mintz admitted that at that time he had at least 10 computer files containing photographs of minors engaging in sexual activity, including some images of children under 12. The synagogue said it cooperated with authorities. 'We deplore his actions and, indeed, relieved him of his duties because of them,' according to a statement released by synagogue vice president Jonathan Ramsfelder. 'During his tenure, (Rabbi Mintz) was viewed by many congregants as a warm, generous and dynamic rabbi and teacher. This was a loss.'"

Former Little League Administrator Faces Child Porn Charges, KFWB, March 6, 2002

"A former Long Beach Little League administrator is facing federal child pornography charges, according to the FBI. Signal Hill police and FBI agents arrested Laurent Blumenthal Tuesday after he was indicted on charges of possession of child pornography. Court documents allege the 65-year-old placed a hidden camera in his bathroom to secretly record young boys. The allegations were in an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant executed at Blumenthal's Signal Hill home on Jan. 14. Investigators also seized a computer at Blumenthal's home which allegedly had child pornography on the hard drive, according to the FBI."

Czechs Nix Plan to Shoot Porn Film at the Site of Terezin Transit Camp, JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), March 25, 2002

"Czech officials have quashed plans to shoot scenes from a porno film at the former wartime transit camp of Terezin. Officials banned the use of video cameras at Terezin after reports that a porn movie would be shot there.

'I did the only thing I could do,' Jan Munk, director of a monument to Terezin victims, said. Munk´s move came after the Czech tabloid Super reported Saturday that the film, starring top Czech porn star Robert Rosenberg, who is also the film´s producer, is set at the end of World War II and will tell the story of how women at the camp were raped by Nazis.

The ban might be too late, however, since Rosenberg has already filmed some parts of the camp. The paper that printed the original article on the film, which also printed a collage of a semi-naked woman posing in front of a picture of Terezin, said the film's working title is 'How it Was.'"

Porn Upsets Palestinians, The Advertiser, March 31, 2002

"Porn movies and programs in Hebrew are being broadcast by Israeli troops who have taken over three Palestinian television stations of Ramallah, irate residents of the besieged West Bank town have told AFP. The offices of three local television and radio stations were occupied by soldiers yesterday morning, a few hours after tanks and hundreds of troops stormed the town in Israel's biggest offensive against the Palestinian Authority and its leader Yasser Arafat.

The soldiers started broadcasting the porn clips -- considered extremely offensive by most Muslims -- intermittently this afternoon from the Al-Watan, Ammwaj, and Al-Sharaq channels, the residents said. 'The pornographic movies started on Al-Watan television at around 3:30 pm,' one 34-year-old Palestinian mother named Reema told AFP. 'I have six children at home, they have nowhere to go with what is going on here and can't even watch TV,' she said angrily. 'It's not healthy really. I think the Israelis want to mess with our young men's heads,' she said.

Anita, a 52-year-old mother of three children, complained about "the deliberate psychological damage caused by these broadcast.'. 'I am furious, these are the people who are shooting at us that also play this disgusting trick on us,' she said. 'We are desperate for news and constantly flipping channels and get these terrible pictures instead,' adding that videos of the intifada were also shown backwards with 'ideal terrorism' written in red across the screen. 'Luckily, there is no electricity in half of Ramallah,' she said from her house in east Jerusalem where the channels are also available.

A fourth local station, whose premises were not seized by the army, ran a written message across its screen letting people know it was the Israelis who were behind the graphic scenes. 'Anything currently shown on Al-Watan and other local TV channels has nothing to do with Palestinian programs but is being broadcast by the Israeli occupation forces, we urge parents to take precautions,' the message said. The Israeli military denied that it had anything to do with the pornographic programming and instead blamed the Palestinian leaders."