By Tropper is Troubled:
A serious poster on Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn's Da'as Torah blog has called it like it is by asking the most solid Halachic questions (shaylos) and comes up with the most obvious answer:
"Tropper - Why the Rabbis were silent: Anonymous said...First of all, this is not about one community. Second of all, the pulse of the community is beaten by us, not by the Rabbonim in the shuls. Third of all, Purim is coming up. We need a resolution. Those who live near Grove Street or Maple Avenue need to know where their children can go to deliver mishloach manos. As a family with teenage daughters, we need to know if Kol Yaakov bochurim should be allowed to dance in our house this year. When bochurim go shteeble hopping, do they go to Kol Yaakov? Do we drop by the purim shpiel? What if a shidduch is red with a Kol Yaakov bochur? Without any answers or at least progress reports, I think the de facto answer will be to isolate anyone having to do with Kol Yaakov..."
This is what it's come to. The above was in response to the interview in the 5 Towns Jewish times by Rabbi Ribiat of Forshay in Monsey NY : "Leib Tropper - Why the Rabbis Were Silent: 'If True - A Venomous Snake in our Midst'" January 24, 2010.
The masses of Torah Jewry are about to take the law into their own hands.
They must.
They HAVE TO protect their daughters, and sons, who can easily be "role played raped" as Tropper told Shannon Orand he could do, by Tropper or one of his henchmen.
The dangerous Tropper cult is practiced in OUTWARD frumkeit and chumras but INWARD sexual depravity and sex-crazedness. They think that sexual misdeeds are just "opportunities" up the rung of the next act of "teshuva", they are morally meshuga and the Jews of Monsey where the Tropper wolf's lair is dug in are the most worried because they have werewolf Tropper and she-wolf Leba with fangs dripping on YouTube for the world to hear and see on their doorstep.
The time for fun and games is over.
Word has it that the people at Agudath Israel are going to continue stonewalling, they are going to act dumb and dumber and have bozo articles written by Avi Shafran to have the wool pulled over the oilem goilem's eyes, but they can forget about it.
Just listen to the underlying fear in the tone of that heartrending shaylo from a Monsey resident. Amcha is calling.
It's going to be a people's revolt against Tropper and the rabbanim are going to look like a bunch of frightened castrated caged rabbits imprisoned in Tropper's basement.
What do you do when you a have an unmasked werewolf and rabbinic dracula like Tropper posing as the "rabbi next door"? Ever seen a werewolf or dracula movie? You have to be brave and defang him, (just don't show him a cross r"l or maybe that is just what apikores Tropper needs to be shown he is a false messiah like Yoshke)
It's not a joke and no one is laughing!
Behind the scenes the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudath Israel of America is in deadlock over how to react to the Tropper scandal.
Since the ruling Moetzes is controlled by a troika of old-time octogenarian talmidim of the late R Yitzchok Hutner led by Aron Shechter of Chaim Berlin yeshiva and abetted by Aron Feldman of Ner Israel with the supposed Agudah head Yakov Perlow of Novominsk bringing up the rear, and of course they can count on Dovid Feinstein brother of Reuven Feinstein to protect their interests, and Shmuel Kaminetzky is probably dithering somewhere in the middle because in the past he was the only one who stood up to Shechter in the kidnapping affair of Isaac Hersh and he also backtracked from the forged "kol koreh" against LIPA the singer, so maybe now too Kaminetzky is knocking his head against the wall that Shechter does not want to cut his losses and Kaminetzky may be the only lonely voice pleading that Agudah say something more clear. He will have no problems dumping Tropper once and for all and not have that darned place in Monsey Kol Yaakov associated with his late father's holy name.
So what do they think these Agudist Moetzes mighty men? That people don't know what's going on? Or that America is like Meah Shearim and you can stop people from reading and writing on blogs? Or that freedom of the press does not apply to Jewish newspapers that can get some good mileage out the Tropper/EJF sex scandal? Just how dumb do they think people really are?
Maybe they are trying to save the name of the near defunct EJF organization by passing the buck to dumbo megalomaniacs like Suchard of Gateways according to some reliable rumors. But they are clearly out of date and out of their depths here as this scandal will never go away until Tropper's own rabbis, not the BADATS that already wiped its hands of Tropper years ago, or the RCA that condemned him the minute the scandal became public, but these same dunder heads at the Moetzes must show what they are made of and not act like Nixon's cover-up squad.
The Über-Agudists are the ones who got the millions from Tropper, like Reuven and Dovid Feinstein and those who have been in cahoots with Tropper for decades like Aron Shechter must now do the avoda of the kohen gadol and send the Tropper se'ir la'azazel and be done with him once and for all, or else risk a massive destruction of every last vestige of respect that anyone has for so-called "gedolim" who cannot even go by the simple logic of "if it talks like a duck and walks like a duck -- it's a duck" and get rid of the Tropper monster duck once and for all and not act like a phony Sanhedrin of shotim gemurim.
In light of everything, the fact that there is irrefutable proof that it is none other than Leib and Leba Tropper's voices on those tapes committing those abominations and depravities, as well as much else that is both common knowledge and behind the scenes knowledge about Leib and Leba Tropper:
1. Leib and Leba Tropper must be put in CHEREM immediately! There are enough good rabbonim to do so. Tropper must PERMANENTLY give up all positions in the rabbinate. No more "rosh yeshiva" of anything no more "rabbi of this and that" and all the titles he collected like a tin pot dictator. Preferably the Tropper family must leave Monsey and settle in place like Switzerland (Tom Kaplan can buy them a chalet near a minyan) or in Florida (they have friends there) as PRIVATE CITIZENS stripped of all rabbinic rank, power and influence!
2. EJF must be shut down PERMANENTLY!
3. Kol Yaakov yeshiva in Monsey must be shut down PERMANENTLY!
4. Horizons outreach program must be shut down PERMANENTLY!
5. The Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation must be shut down PERMANENTLY !
6. Menachem Lubinsky of LUBICOM must be boycotted PERMANENTLY for the damage he facilitated by acting as EJF's PR and propaganda czar.
7. Tom Kaplan and his wife Dafna Recanati, the enablers of Tropper/EJF/Horizons in these last years, must be kept out from the Orthodox and Charedi community (they are not religious Jews in any case and don't care much about wanting to be religious) and not one more cent must ever be accepted from them by anyone in the Torah world, PERMANENTLY!
8. No more funds should be accepted in the Orthodox and Charedi world from Guma (he should have a refuah sheleimah bekarov) and Jamie Aguiar, and Guma's mother Ellen Kaplan Aguiar and the Aguiar family or their Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation -- PERMANENTLY. They were also originally Tropper's enablers with the EJF scheme.
9. Rav Reuven Feinstein must be put on notice to STOP his support of the immoral and corrupt Leib Tropper AT ONCE and NOT harass and instigate problems against those from Rav Sternbuch's side who have had the courage to speak the truth when it was not popular. Had R Reuven Feinstein heeded the advice of those from the BADATZ he would not be in the sick situation he is in now. He only has himself to blame. When you sleep with the dogs you catch fleas.
10. Aron Shechter of Chaim Berlin yeshiva in Brooklyn must be put on notice that the world will NOT tolerate his tyrannical irrational and damaging support for Tropper that must stop once and for all and cut of all contact with Tropper PERMANENTLY. Shechter's disciples are called upon to protect Shechter from himself and from the dragging Chaim Berlin into irreversible shame and disgrace. Shechter is in remission from cancer and he should have a refuah sheleimah bekarov but he would be well advised to stay home in Brooklyn and end his days in happiness surrounded by his family and zombie talmidim and stop his delusions of protecting sickos like Tropper and Michael Hersh. Shechter has already caused lots of damage by his stubbornness in protecting his crazed BT disciple Michael Hersh who sent his own son to the island of Jamaica with Shechter's blessings and support. Maybe the earthquake in Haiti was a sign from Hashem against that. What if Isaac Hersh would be now on Haiti under ten feet of rubble, would that make Shechter and Michael Hersh happy? Who knows.
11. The Jewish Press newspaper should be boycotted, and Dennis Rapps Esq its legal counsel who wrote all the pro-EJF/Tropper drivel and lies in it should become persona non grata in the Torah world, for their appalling shameful support of Tropper at every twist and turn and glorifying EJF from its inception and helping to bring about the ensuing international Chillul Hashem disaster by giving Tropper/EJF legitimacy! At least if anyone really has to, buy the English YATED because its editor stuck to his guns and boycotted Tropper and EJF in spite of pressures on him, and the Yated now publishes a weekly column by Rav Moshe Sternbuch of Yerushalayim who is the first and so far only gadol and posek to 100% oppose and fight Tropper and EJF for years.
12. And finally, Agudath Israel of America must speak out STRONGLY to condemn and shut down any vestige and trace of Tropper and his organizations. The Agudists are so dumb for not seeing what's going on here. Wake up Agudah and smell the Tropper poison-laced coffee, before Klal Yisroel starts organizing demonstrations against all of you, running away from you, and the worst fate you deserve, just IGNORING you the way you are ignoring the festering and still spreading Chillul Hashem of the Tropper/EJF cancer.
Wake up, before it's too late!
It may already be too late, so much damage has already been done by your Agudist ilk and brother Leibel Tropper der menuval shebemenuvalim, as Rabbi Rothkopf referred to him in Yerushalayim recently when students at YU in Israel asked what should be the reaction to the Tropper sex scandal!
Every corner of the Jewish globe is aware of this scandal as each day goes by more get to know about it, and only you, Tropper's Agudist rabbis can bring it to proper closure by putting Leib and Leba Tropper & Company (vechol abizraihu) in Cherem and shutting them down PERMANENTLY!
Or else face the wrath of history as you too and the whole Agudah world become disgraced for your cowardice, greed and cover up of the Leib and Leba Tropper/EJF sex scandal -- and members of Agudah will be called upon to resign from this disgraceful hypocritical organization, once founded by Giants of Torah Jewry now infested with meek mice who fear predatory cats like Leib and Leba Tropper more than they fear Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the Emes (Truth) !!!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Among Friends
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/23832/among-friends/
Leib Tropper spent his way into the rabbinic elite—and, even after his fall, those other rabbis are unwilling to condemn him
By Allison Hoffman - Tablet Magazine | 7:00 am Jan 19, 2010
CREDIT: Photoillustration by Tablet Magazine; Tropper photo from RationalistJudaism.com; background photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
In May 2007, Leib Tropper arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, to preside over a grand conclave of prospective converts to Judaism sponsored by his Eternal Jewish Family organization, which offered “Cadillac conversions” to non-Jews as part of an effort to seize control of the conversion process outside of Israel. Buoyed by a $4.8 million infusion of cash from the billionaire Thomas Kaplan, an oil and mining mogul who is currently president of the board at the 92nd Street Y in New York, the fast-talking rabbi with global ambitions and a smooth line of patter had offered would-be Jews a special treat: an all-expenses paid weekend of discussions on topics like “Becoming Part of the Jewish Family” at the Arizona Biltmore, a spa resort on 39 acres at the foot of Phoenix Mountain that is part of the Waldorf-Astoria chain.
While offers of Ayurvedic massages and luxury accommodation may seem at odds with the somber, discouraging face that ultra-Orthodoxy has traditionally turned to prospective converts, Tropper, by most accounts, did not seem particularly interested in relaxing halachic codes to accommodate the modern world. A biblical literalist, he played an active role in an effort by a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to ban the books of another rabbi, Nosson Slifkin, who believed that the world is older than the Jewish calendar—that is, 5,770 years. In 2006, among his other duties, he took it upon himself to retroactively invalidate the conversion of a woman who subsequently dared to violate ultra-Orthodox codes of modesty by wearing pants.
As a newcomer to the fraught business of conversions—and, according to people who dealt with him, someone who could at times be an abrasive individual—Tropper appears to have been willing to augment his personal power at the expense of his conversion candidates, a vulnerable group whose well-being is supposed to be protected from oppressive behavior by millennia of explicit rabbinical teaching and practice. To his students, he presented himself as a learned teacher who could help them reach the God they yearned for. In the billionaire Thomas Kaplan and his multimillionaire nephew Guma Aguiar, Tropper found a pair of patrons who, in exchange for access to the leading halachic authorities in New York and Jerusalem, would help the rabbi reinforce his newfound influence over the conversion process with lavish spectacles in American cities like Phoenix and Boston as well as at the luxurious David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem. In addition to paying for food, drink, and hotel rooms at five-star hotels, Tropper also used Kaplan and Aguiar’s millions to curry favor with some of the most elevated rabbinic authorities in the world—including Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, one of the ultra-Orthodox world’s pre-eminent scholars, and Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar.
The world of spa vacations at the Biltmore was a long way from Tropper’s home base in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Monsey, New York, where the rabbi ran a small yeshiva, Kol Yaakov, that specialized in “returning” non-observant adult Jews to Judaism. For more than two decades, Tropper—who was born into a rabbinic family on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and educated in Jerusalem—instructed returnees to Judaism, called ba’alei teshuva, on the laws of Torah in a modest brick-and-stucco house outfitted with a basketball hoop in the narrow parking lot out back. He got his start at Ohr Somayach, one of Monsey’s largest adult yeshivas, but splintered off to start Kol Yaakov in 1981 with help from a late New York couple, Louis J. Septimus and his wife, Edythe, for whom the school’s building is named.
The backing provided by Kaplan and Aguiar, Kaplan’s now-estranged nephew, was on an entirely different scale. The largesse provided by the two men over the years—at least $8 million, according to financial documents filed with the IRS—gave the rabbi entree into the insular world of the Israeli rabbinate—a cloistered group of men who, with the approval of the Israeli government, determine who can and cannot be considered a Jew, whatever their level of religious observance. By the time Tropper got to Phoenix, he could offer their imprimatur to reassure nervous hopefuls that he was the one conduit to becoming “a real Jew.” “If we ever make aliyah, there isn’t going to be any question of my Jewishness,” one Tropper graduate, Lucia Schnitzer, told the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix before the 2007 Biltmore weekend. “If my daughter wants to marry a Kohen, there isn’t going to be any question.”
In the past month, Tropper has been undone by the emergence of audio and video recordings that seem to indicate he tried to use his position to coerce a student, Shannon Orand, into having sex with other men in exchange not just for her conversion to Judaism but for cash. According to a student who answered the door at Kol Yaakov on Sunday, he remains in charge of the yeshiva, but Dovid Jacobs, Tropper’s former right-hand man, told Tablet Magazine the rabbi has been removed from his positions at both Eternal Jewish Family and its parent organization, Horizons Bais Achiezer, which have separate offices a few miles away from the yeshiva, in the neighboring town of Suffern. Tropper did not respond to requests for comment.
In the weeks since Tropper’s downfall, none of the rabbis who facilitated his meteoric rise in the Jewish world—men whose lives are devoted to the pious observance of God’s word—have stepped forward to publicly condemn Tropper for his violations of ultra-Orthodox codes on modesty and extramarital sex, let alone for his apparent willingness to use his position of religious authority to exploit the single mother of two young children for sex. The deafening silence parallels the response from the Roman Catholic Church after allegations of widespread child abuse surfaced in 2002; in diocese after diocese, bishops chose to protect the abusers, and settle generously with the victims, rather than forthrightly condemn what any parishioner would rightly see as an abomination in the eyes of God. “A community is measured by how it responds to something like this,” said one ultra-Orthodox rabbi. “The right-wing yeshivishe world is in damage control.”
As recently as November, when Tropper’s son got married, the list of rabbis who either attended or sent blessings included Elyashiv, and Reuven Feinstein, the son of the Rav Moshe Feinstein, who died in 1986, the most respected ultra-Orthodox halachic authority of his time. In addition to his impressive lineage, Reuven Feinstein is a widely respected figure in his own right and the head of the Yeshiva of Staten Island—which received a $3 million gift from Kaplan and Aguiar’s family foundation in 2008. Tropper gushed on his blog after the celebration, “The chuppah looked like a who’s who of the Torah world!”
In the wake of Tropper’s resignation from EJF, in mid-December, Feinstein declined to condemn Tropper’s activities or distance himself from EJF. Indeed, Feinstein issued a statement indicating he would increase his work with Eternal Jewish Family, to ensure that the organization would “continue to be guided by the highest halachic standards.”
To some, Feinstein’s circumspect response to the Tropper scandal was reminiscent of his silence on two other recent scandals involving sex and the abuse of rabbinic authority, both of which involved members of Feinstein’s family, [the sons of his sister and brother in-law, Rabbi Moshe Tendler]. One, Mordecai Tendler, was dismissed in 2006 from his post at a synagogue in Spring Valley, near Monsey, after a congregant accused him of seducing her into an affair with threats the she’d never find a husband unless she slept with him. A few weeks later, Tendler’s brother, Aron, resigned as principal of an Orthodox day school in Los Angeles amid allegations that he had “inappropriate” relations with female students.
Feinstein, of course, wasn’t involved in either of those incidents. But Feinstein’s willingness to take strong public stands on abstract questions of morality—including some as minute as whether or not men can return handshakes proffered by women (they can, to avoid embarrassing the other person)—only underscored, to some, his unwillingness to say even a single word about much more obvious abuses of Jewish law and halachic authority by eminent rabbis within his professional and family circle. (Feinstein did not return a message from Tablet seeking comment.)
It remains unclear what the future of Eternal Jewish Family will be. Kaplan has served as the organization’s chairman; his attorneys told Tablet last week they don’t know whether he will remain in that role. The group currently has a caretaker leader, after the rabbi initially announced as Tropper’s replacement—Elya Wachtfogel, head of a yeshiva in the Catskills hamlet of South Fallsburg, New York—subsequently released a letter saying he had not, in fact, taken the position. “The rumors which were spread of late regarding the EJF organization, alleging it is under my direction, are in error and baseless,” Wachtfogel said, in a handwritten declaration. Nothing further about Tropper, or his transgressions, was said.
If the silence of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate is meant to keep members of their community in the dark, and shield the authority of the rabbinate from shame, it has been countered by outraged discussion on ultra-Orthodox blogs, whose commenters have been following the money that passed through Tropper’s organization—and venting their anger at the ongoing silence from the halachic establishment.
One anonymously written blog, The Unorthodox Jew, called on Feinstein to shut down “this house of prostitution.” A commenter on the blog called for a letter-writing campaign to “as many Orthodox-affiliated Jews as possible, alerting them to the unworthiness of our so-called ‘gedolim’”—a Hebrew term used by ultra-Orthodox Jews to refer to their leaders. “King Lear should be obligatory reading in the ultra-Orthodox world, along with All the King’s Men,” wrote another person. At another highly critical blog, Daas Torah, a commenter wrote: “The chillul hashem”—insult to God—“of Tropper’s scandals is only getting worse with time like a festering untreated cancer.”
One of the few religious authorities to speak out publicly on the Tropper case has been Aba Dunner, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, a group that publicly opposed Tropper’s incursion onto its turf even before the scandal; last week, Dunner published an op-ed in the Five Towns Jewish Times, a New York-area paper catering to Orthodox readers, in which he accused Eternal Jewish Family of conducting a “bounty hunt” for new Jews, by allegedly paying local rabbis to funnel intermarried couples into its fledgling conversion courts.
“Tropper is a fraud,” Dunner wrote. “The organization he created is in his image and is therefore a fraud too. The creators of that image are fraudsters and hucksters who are trying desperately to keep the line to Mr. Kaplan’s millions open.”
Leib Tropper spent his way into the rabbinic elite—and, even after his fall, those other rabbis are unwilling to condemn him
By Allison Hoffman - Tablet Magazine | 7:00 am Jan 19, 2010
CREDIT: Photoillustration by Tablet Magazine; Tropper photo from RationalistJudaism.com; background photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
In May 2007, Leib Tropper arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, to preside over a grand conclave of prospective converts to Judaism sponsored by his Eternal Jewish Family organization, which offered “Cadillac conversions” to non-Jews as part of an effort to seize control of the conversion process outside of Israel. Buoyed by a $4.8 million infusion of cash from the billionaire Thomas Kaplan, an oil and mining mogul who is currently president of the board at the 92nd Street Y in New York, the fast-talking rabbi with global ambitions and a smooth line of patter had offered would-be Jews a special treat: an all-expenses paid weekend of discussions on topics like “Becoming Part of the Jewish Family” at the Arizona Biltmore, a spa resort on 39 acres at the foot of Phoenix Mountain that is part of the Waldorf-Astoria chain.
While offers of Ayurvedic massages and luxury accommodation may seem at odds with the somber, discouraging face that ultra-Orthodoxy has traditionally turned to prospective converts, Tropper, by most accounts, did not seem particularly interested in relaxing halachic codes to accommodate the modern world. A biblical literalist, he played an active role in an effort by a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to ban the books of another rabbi, Nosson Slifkin, who believed that the world is older than the Jewish calendar—that is, 5,770 years. In 2006, among his other duties, he took it upon himself to retroactively invalidate the conversion of a woman who subsequently dared to violate ultra-Orthodox codes of modesty by wearing pants.
As a newcomer to the fraught business of conversions—and, according to people who dealt with him, someone who could at times be an abrasive individual—Tropper appears to have been willing to augment his personal power at the expense of his conversion candidates, a vulnerable group whose well-being is supposed to be protected from oppressive behavior by millennia of explicit rabbinical teaching and practice. To his students, he presented himself as a learned teacher who could help them reach the God they yearned for. In the billionaire Thomas Kaplan and his multimillionaire nephew Guma Aguiar, Tropper found a pair of patrons who, in exchange for access to the leading halachic authorities in New York and Jerusalem, would help the rabbi reinforce his newfound influence over the conversion process with lavish spectacles in American cities like Phoenix and Boston as well as at the luxurious David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem. In addition to paying for food, drink, and hotel rooms at five-star hotels, Tropper also used Kaplan and Aguiar’s millions to curry favor with some of the most elevated rabbinic authorities in the world—including Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, one of the ultra-Orthodox world’s pre-eminent scholars, and Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar.
The world of spa vacations at the Biltmore was a long way from Tropper’s home base in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Monsey, New York, where the rabbi ran a small yeshiva, Kol Yaakov, that specialized in “returning” non-observant adult Jews to Judaism. For more than two decades, Tropper—who was born into a rabbinic family on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and educated in Jerusalem—instructed returnees to Judaism, called ba’alei teshuva, on the laws of Torah in a modest brick-and-stucco house outfitted with a basketball hoop in the narrow parking lot out back. He got his start at Ohr Somayach, one of Monsey’s largest adult yeshivas, but splintered off to start Kol Yaakov in 1981 with help from a late New York couple, Louis J. Septimus and his wife, Edythe, for whom the school’s building is named.
The backing provided by Kaplan and Aguiar, Kaplan’s now-estranged nephew, was on an entirely different scale. The largesse provided by the two men over the years—at least $8 million, according to financial documents filed with the IRS—gave the rabbi entree into the insular world of the Israeli rabbinate—a cloistered group of men who, with the approval of the Israeli government, determine who can and cannot be considered a Jew, whatever their level of religious observance. By the time Tropper got to Phoenix, he could offer their imprimatur to reassure nervous hopefuls that he was the one conduit to becoming “a real Jew.” “If we ever make aliyah, there isn’t going to be any question of my Jewishness,” one Tropper graduate, Lucia Schnitzer, told the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix before the 2007 Biltmore weekend. “If my daughter wants to marry a Kohen, there isn’t going to be any question.”
In the past month, Tropper has been undone by the emergence of audio and video recordings that seem to indicate he tried to use his position to coerce a student, Shannon Orand, into having sex with other men in exchange not just for her conversion to Judaism but for cash. According to a student who answered the door at Kol Yaakov on Sunday, he remains in charge of the yeshiva, but Dovid Jacobs, Tropper’s former right-hand man, told Tablet Magazine the rabbi has been removed from his positions at both Eternal Jewish Family and its parent organization, Horizons Bais Achiezer, which have separate offices a few miles away from the yeshiva, in the neighboring town of Suffern. Tropper did not respond to requests for comment.
In the weeks since Tropper’s downfall, none of the rabbis who facilitated his meteoric rise in the Jewish world—men whose lives are devoted to the pious observance of God’s word—have stepped forward to publicly condemn Tropper for his violations of ultra-Orthodox codes on modesty and extramarital sex, let alone for his apparent willingness to use his position of religious authority to exploit the single mother of two young children for sex. The deafening silence parallels the response from the Roman Catholic Church after allegations of widespread child abuse surfaced in 2002; in diocese after diocese, bishops chose to protect the abusers, and settle generously with the victims, rather than forthrightly condemn what any parishioner would rightly see as an abomination in the eyes of God. “A community is measured by how it responds to something like this,” said one ultra-Orthodox rabbi. “The right-wing yeshivishe world is in damage control.”
As recently as November, when Tropper’s son got married, the list of rabbis who either attended or sent blessings included Elyashiv, and Reuven Feinstein, the son of the Rav Moshe Feinstein, who died in 1986, the most respected ultra-Orthodox halachic authority of his time. In addition to his impressive lineage, Reuven Feinstein is a widely respected figure in his own right and the head of the Yeshiva of Staten Island—which received a $3 million gift from Kaplan and Aguiar’s family foundation in 2008. Tropper gushed on his blog after the celebration, “The chuppah looked like a who’s who of the Torah world!”
In the wake of Tropper’s resignation from EJF, in mid-December, Feinstein declined to condemn Tropper’s activities or distance himself from EJF. Indeed, Feinstein issued a statement indicating he would increase his work with Eternal Jewish Family, to ensure that the organization would “continue to be guided by the highest halachic standards.”
To some, Feinstein’s circumspect response to the Tropper scandal was reminiscent of his silence on two other recent scandals involving sex and the abuse of rabbinic authority, both of which involved members of Feinstein’s family, [the sons of his sister and brother in-law, Rabbi Moshe Tendler]. One, Mordecai Tendler, was dismissed in 2006 from his post at a synagogue in Spring Valley, near Monsey, after a congregant accused him of seducing her into an affair with threats the she’d never find a husband unless she slept with him. A few weeks later, Tendler’s brother, Aron, resigned as principal of an Orthodox day school in Los Angeles amid allegations that he had “inappropriate” relations with female students.
Feinstein, of course, wasn’t involved in either of those incidents. But Feinstein’s willingness to take strong public stands on abstract questions of morality—including some as minute as whether or not men can return handshakes proffered by women (they can, to avoid embarrassing the other person)—only underscored, to some, his unwillingness to say even a single word about much more obvious abuses of Jewish law and halachic authority by eminent rabbis within his professional and family circle. (Feinstein did not return a message from Tablet seeking comment.)
It remains unclear what the future of Eternal Jewish Family will be. Kaplan has served as the organization’s chairman; his attorneys told Tablet last week they don’t know whether he will remain in that role. The group currently has a caretaker leader, after the rabbi initially announced as Tropper’s replacement—Elya Wachtfogel, head of a yeshiva in the Catskills hamlet of South Fallsburg, New York—subsequently released a letter saying he had not, in fact, taken the position. “The rumors which were spread of late regarding the EJF organization, alleging it is under my direction, are in error and baseless,” Wachtfogel said, in a handwritten declaration. Nothing further about Tropper, or his transgressions, was said.
If the silence of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate is meant to keep members of their community in the dark, and shield the authority of the rabbinate from shame, it has been countered by outraged discussion on ultra-Orthodox blogs, whose commenters have been following the money that passed through Tropper’s organization—and venting their anger at the ongoing silence from the halachic establishment.
One anonymously written blog, The Unorthodox Jew, called on Feinstein to shut down “this house of prostitution.” A commenter on the blog called for a letter-writing campaign to “as many Orthodox-affiliated Jews as possible, alerting them to the unworthiness of our so-called ‘gedolim’”—a Hebrew term used by ultra-Orthodox Jews to refer to their leaders. “King Lear should be obligatory reading in the ultra-Orthodox world, along with All the King’s Men,” wrote another person. At another highly critical blog, Daas Torah, a commenter wrote: “The chillul hashem”—insult to God—“of Tropper’s scandals is only getting worse with time like a festering untreated cancer.”
One of the few religious authorities to speak out publicly on the Tropper case has been Aba Dunner, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, a group that publicly opposed Tropper’s incursion onto its turf even before the scandal; last week, Dunner published an op-ed in the Five Towns Jewish Times, a New York-area paper catering to Orthodox readers, in which he accused Eternal Jewish Family of conducting a “bounty hunt” for new Jews, by allegedly paying local rabbis to funnel intermarried couples into its fledgling conversion courts.
“Tropper is a fraud,” Dunner wrote. “The organization he created is in his image and is therefore a fraud too. The creators of that image are fraudsters and hucksters who are trying desperately to keep the line to Mr. Kaplan’s millions open.”
Monday, January 18, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Intelligent Pigs
***Breaking News - January 14, 2010 Thursday, January 14, 2010 2:13 AM EST - From Israel***
The Supreme Court judges just freed Avrohom Mondrowitz. The terms for his bail are being negotiated while the State's prosecutors decide whether to file an application for a second appeal. The judges did not read their decision but it should be published on the Internet later today***
*************************************************************
R' Shmuel Kaminetzky at podium - R' Reuvein Feinstein to his left
The Smartest Domestic Animal in The World
Dec 16, 2008 - Chris McLaughlin
A roadblock humans have in deciphering intelligence in animals is that we can't help but assume the smartest ones must resemble us. Clearly, nobody told that to the pig.
How is intelligence measured? After all, even people can be intelligent or extraordinary in many ways. Some excel at math, and some are gifted linguists. Others fail in the academic arena entirely, and shine as masterful artists. One way to measure intelligence is based on the ability to solve problems.
The associations people have made with the word, ‘pig’, are less than glamorous. In fact, there are downright negative connotations attached to the word, which is why we use it to insult people. But, let’s put aside our preconceived ideas of what we think a pig is, let’s take a look at who they really are.
Pigs have been touted as the smartest, and the cleanest domestic animals in the world. The phrases, “sweat like a pig” or “smell like a pig”, may come to mind. But, consider that pigs don’t have sweat glands, and therefore, can’t sweat (except on the very ends of their snouts). The lack of sweat glands means lack of odor - affording no credibility to either statement.
To compensate for the lack of a natural way to bring their body temperature down, pigs seek out water or mud. Pigs rolling in mud may look uncouth, but they are actually being quite smart. The mud not only keeps them cool, but keeps biting pests at bay, and prevents sunburn.
As Smart as the Primates
Intelligence research was done with pigs in the 1990s. One of the experiments was to train the pigs to move the cursor on a video screen with their snouts. When the pigs used the cursors again, they were able to distinguish between the scribbles they already knew, and the scribbles they were seeing for the first time. The pigs learned this skill as fast as the chimpanzees.
EJF PRESS RELEASE [Read Agudath Israel - Kaminet$ky/Fein$tein]:
New York - Your interview with Rabbi Aba Dunner, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis (January 7, 2010), unfortunately twists the truth about Eternal Jewish Family International (EJF) and is, to say the least, insulting to leading Gedolei Yisroel. Any real search into the truth behind Rabbi Dunner’s charges will lead to discredited sources that are using the recent personal scandal of the founder of EJF as an excuse to disparage leading Torah scholars and the organization.
Rabbi Leib Tropper, the organization’s former director, has resigned and no longer has any role in the organization. EJF continues its worldwide activities under the leadership of the Gedolei Yisroel
Here are the facts about the scandalous charges Rabbi Dunner made:
Who approached whom and why did the arrangement sour?
Rabbi Dunner was the one who approached EJF for assistance in funding the Bais Din activities in Europe under the direction of Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu, the head of the European Bais Din. This was consistent with EJF’s mission to promote universally accepted conversions in intermarriage, as per the dictates of leading poskim, including Harav Moshe Feinstein zt”l who ruled that in the case of a baal teshuva and a potential ger tzedek (convert who accepts Torah and Mitzvos as a way of life) hat such conversions are to be encouraged. In its four-year existence, EJF has affiliated with a network of 19 Botei Din in this country and provided support to the dayanim in the form of conferences and seminars.
EJF made a significant grant to the CER to expand the activities of the Botei Din in Europe. It soon grew suspicious of the questionable use of the funds by Rabbi Dunner who is employed by the CER and whose responsibilities included the activities of the Beis Din. EJF asked Rabbi Dunner to refund the balance of the money that had not yet been spent or at least to place the money in the trust of Dayan Ehrentreu. Rabbi Dunner refused and in fact continued to bill EJF for “Bais Din expenses” even after the money was spent. (We expect that Rabbi Dunner will surely donate this money to charity as he suggested to rabbonim who received reimbursement for their expenses to attend EJF conferences.)
While Rabbi Dunner mentions the 25-member Standing Committee of the CER as the basis for his recent support in opposing EJF seminars for intermarried couples, it turned out that he had never received that body’s approval to go forward with the original EJF –CER arrangement. He managed to circumvent the same body that he is now using to discredit the EJF.
What is the halachic basis for the seminars for mixed couples and who in Europe supports it?
The seminars are really kiruv seminars for couples where one spouse is well on the way towards becoming a baal teshuva (or may already be) and the other enroute to becoming a ger tzedek. It is consistent with the kind of chinuch that the Gedolim have ruled is fully permissible and even to be encouraged for a prospective convert and the baal teshuva spouse. In fact, this past week EJF sponsored a seminar for nearly 30 couples in Munich that was under the auspices of Dayan Ehrentreu, the leading halachic posek in Europe. The Dayan lectured on such subjects as taharas hamishpocho (family purity) and kashrus and met with each of the couples.
Rabbi Dunner’s opposition to EJF was based on the support by the CER Standing Committee (later joined by an unsigned statement by the London Bais Din of which Dayan Ehrentreu is a member). The Standing Committee issued a resolution against the seminars and in essence against their own Av Bais Din. For some unexplained reason, none of the senior rabbonim was in Moscow when the decision was taken by the CER Standing Committee to issue such a statement against the seminars and EJF’s role in Europe. When Dayan Ehrentreu did attempt to board a plane for Moscow to attend the session, he found that for the first time in his life his visa was mysteriously invalid.
Reacting to the derogatory remarks against Gedolei Hatorah, including Dayan Ehrentreu, sharp letters of rebuke against this bizoyon of kovod Hatorah (insult of the honor of Torah) have in recent days been issued by Harav Yosef Chaim Sitruk, president of the CER, Harav Moshe Lebel, the chairman of the Rabbinic Committee of CER, and Rabbi Yihya Teboul, the Chief Rabbi of Lyon, France. It should be noted that the seminars were endorsed by Rav Aaron Leib Shteinman, shlita, even as Rabbi Dunner claimed that Rav Shteinman was opposed to the seminars. The Rosh Yeshiva, in fact, told Dayan Ehrentreu and numerous other witnesses, including Rabbi Dunner’s own brother, that he was categorically in favor of these chinuch seminars. He reportedly told Rabbi Dunner: “What’s wrong with the seminars? They (EJF) don’t do the geyrus.” But Rabbi Dunner used his version to obtain the resolution from the Standing Committee.
Has the organization inappropriately exerted pressure on Botei Din to grant questionable conversions?
Even Rabbi Dunner was at a loss to cite specifics. EJF does not do geyrus. They are done by independent Botei Din who make their own decisions on the qualifications for geyrus. All the 19 Botei Din in North America, Dayan Ehrentreu’s Bais Din, and numerous Israeli Botei Din operate independently and after a careful evaluation of each case perform geyrus according to Halacha.
How is the organization reacting to the scandal of its former director?
The director of EJF involved in the regrettable personal scandal has resigned and has no role in the organization. EJF has added the highly regarded Rabbi Chaim Blum to its staff to assist it with expanding its rabbinic leadership and key personnel in its offices in the US, Europe and Israel. Its remarkable achievement in affiliating with a network of Botei Din and advancing order to the chaotic geyrus scene is to say the least a formidable accomplishment.
Five leading Gedolei Yisroel (Harav Yosef Sholem Eliyashiv, shlita, Harav Aaron Leib Shteinman, shlita, Harav Chaim Kanievski, shlita, Harav Yitzchok Scheiner, shlita, and Harav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, shlita) have recently written Mr. Tom Kaplan, the Chairman of EJF, urging the continuation of the work of the organization. The three heads of the Halachic Committees (Harav Reuven Feinstein shlita – USA, Dayan Ehrentreu – Europe, and Harav Shmuel Eliezer Stern –Av Bais Din of Harav Shmuel Wozner – Israel) have urged the Botei Din around the world to continue their work under the EJF.
The organization’s activities have not been limited to geyrus support programs. It has partnered with numerous well-known kiruv organizations (Gateways, Ohr Someach, Lev Leachim, Hidabroot, Arachim and Nefesh Yehudi) to encourage Jewish youth to marry Jews.
We are extremely disappointed that Rabbi Dunner has chosen to exploit the regrettable circumstances of the scandal to discredit Gedolei Yisroel and the Eternal Jewish Family. It is our hope that all Jews who seek the truth and who cherish kedushas yisroel (the sanctity of the Jewish nation) will appreciate our efforts to set the record straight.
Rav Dunner Responds to EJF Attack
No Punches Pulled
Published on Monday, January 11, 2010 -
By Rabbi Aba Dunner
GO TO THE WEBSITE BELOW TO READ THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GEDOLIM FROM EJF!
A small quote:
......."Tropper is a fraud. The organization he created is in his image
and is therefore a fraud too. The creators of that image are
fraudsters and hucksters who are trying desperately to keep the
line to Mr Kaplan's millions open. The chareidi world feels
diminished and tainted and wishes they would go away and the
chilul Hashem would stop"................... ♦
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=5595
The Supreme Court judges just freed Avrohom Mondrowitz. The terms for his bail are being negotiated while the State's prosecutors decide whether to file an application for a second appeal. The judges did not read their decision but it should be published on the Internet later today***
*************************************************************
R' Shmuel Kaminetzky at podium - R' Reuvein Feinstein to his leftThe Smartest Domestic Animal in The World
Dec 16, 2008 - Chris McLaughlin
A roadblock humans have in deciphering intelligence in animals is that we can't help but assume the smartest ones must resemble us. Clearly, nobody told that to the pig.
How is intelligence measured? After all, even people can be intelligent or extraordinary in many ways. Some excel at math, and some are gifted linguists. Others fail in the academic arena entirely, and shine as masterful artists. One way to measure intelligence is based on the ability to solve problems.
The associations people have made with the word, ‘pig’, are less than glamorous. In fact, there are downright negative connotations attached to the word, which is why we use it to insult people. But, let’s put aside our preconceived ideas of what we think a pig is, let’s take a look at who they really are.
Pigs have been touted as the smartest, and the cleanest domestic animals in the world. The phrases, “sweat like a pig” or “smell like a pig”, may come to mind. But, consider that pigs don’t have sweat glands, and therefore, can’t sweat (except on the very ends of their snouts). The lack of sweat glands means lack of odor - affording no credibility to either statement.
To compensate for the lack of a natural way to bring their body temperature down, pigs seek out water or mud. Pigs rolling in mud may look uncouth, but they are actually being quite smart. The mud not only keeps them cool, but keeps biting pests at bay, and prevents sunburn.
As Smart as the Primates
Intelligence research was done with pigs in the 1990s. One of the experiments was to train the pigs to move the cursor on a video screen with their snouts. When the pigs used the cursors again, they were able to distinguish between the scribbles they already knew, and the scribbles they were seeing for the first time. The pigs learned this skill as fast as the chimpanzees.
EJF PRESS RELEASE [Read Agudath Israel - Kaminet$ky/Fein$tein]:
New York - Your interview with Rabbi Aba Dunner, the executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis (January 7, 2010), unfortunately twists the truth about Eternal Jewish Family International (EJF) and is, to say the least, insulting to leading Gedolei Yisroel. Any real search into the truth behind Rabbi Dunner’s charges will lead to discredited sources that are using the recent personal scandal of the founder of EJF as an excuse to disparage leading Torah scholars and the organization.
Rabbi Leib Tropper, the organization’s former director, has resigned and no longer has any role in the organization. EJF continues its worldwide activities under the leadership of the Gedolei Yisroel
Here are the facts about the scandalous charges Rabbi Dunner made:
Who approached whom and why did the arrangement sour?
Rabbi Dunner was the one who approached EJF for assistance in funding the Bais Din activities in Europe under the direction of Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu, the head of the European Bais Din. This was consistent with EJF’s mission to promote universally accepted conversions in intermarriage, as per the dictates of leading poskim, including Harav Moshe Feinstein zt”l who ruled that in the case of a baal teshuva and a potential ger tzedek (convert who accepts Torah and Mitzvos as a way of life) hat such conversions are to be encouraged. In its four-year existence, EJF has affiliated with a network of 19 Botei Din in this country and provided support to the dayanim in the form of conferences and seminars.
EJF made a significant grant to the CER to expand the activities of the Botei Din in Europe. It soon grew suspicious of the questionable use of the funds by Rabbi Dunner who is employed by the CER and whose responsibilities included the activities of the Beis Din. EJF asked Rabbi Dunner to refund the balance of the money that had not yet been spent or at least to place the money in the trust of Dayan Ehrentreu. Rabbi Dunner refused and in fact continued to bill EJF for “Bais Din expenses” even after the money was spent. (We expect that Rabbi Dunner will surely donate this money to charity as he suggested to rabbonim who received reimbursement for their expenses to attend EJF conferences.)
While Rabbi Dunner mentions the 25-member Standing Committee of the CER as the basis for his recent support in opposing EJF seminars for intermarried couples, it turned out that he had never received that body’s approval to go forward with the original EJF –CER arrangement. He managed to circumvent the same body that he is now using to discredit the EJF.
What is the halachic basis for the seminars for mixed couples and who in Europe supports it?
The seminars are really kiruv seminars for couples where one spouse is well on the way towards becoming a baal teshuva (or may already be) and the other enroute to becoming a ger tzedek. It is consistent with the kind of chinuch that the Gedolim have ruled is fully permissible and even to be encouraged for a prospective convert and the baal teshuva spouse. In fact, this past week EJF sponsored a seminar for nearly 30 couples in Munich that was under the auspices of Dayan Ehrentreu, the leading halachic posek in Europe. The Dayan lectured on such subjects as taharas hamishpocho (family purity) and kashrus and met with each of the couples.
Rabbi Dunner’s opposition to EJF was based on the support by the CER Standing Committee (later joined by an unsigned statement by the London Bais Din of which Dayan Ehrentreu is a member). The Standing Committee issued a resolution against the seminars and in essence against their own Av Bais Din. For some unexplained reason, none of the senior rabbonim was in Moscow when the decision was taken by the CER Standing Committee to issue such a statement against the seminars and EJF’s role in Europe. When Dayan Ehrentreu did attempt to board a plane for Moscow to attend the session, he found that for the first time in his life his visa was mysteriously invalid.
Reacting to the derogatory remarks against Gedolei Hatorah, including Dayan Ehrentreu, sharp letters of rebuke against this bizoyon of kovod Hatorah (insult of the honor of Torah) have in recent days been issued by Harav Yosef Chaim Sitruk, president of the CER, Harav Moshe Lebel, the chairman of the Rabbinic Committee of CER, and Rabbi Yihya Teboul, the Chief Rabbi of Lyon, France. It should be noted that the seminars were endorsed by Rav Aaron Leib Shteinman, shlita, even as Rabbi Dunner claimed that Rav Shteinman was opposed to the seminars. The Rosh Yeshiva, in fact, told Dayan Ehrentreu and numerous other witnesses, including Rabbi Dunner’s own brother, that he was categorically in favor of these chinuch seminars. He reportedly told Rabbi Dunner: “What’s wrong with the seminars? They (EJF) don’t do the geyrus.” But Rabbi Dunner used his version to obtain the resolution from the Standing Committee.
Has the organization inappropriately exerted pressure on Botei Din to grant questionable conversions?
Even Rabbi Dunner was at a loss to cite specifics. EJF does not do geyrus. They are done by independent Botei Din who make their own decisions on the qualifications for geyrus. All the 19 Botei Din in North America, Dayan Ehrentreu’s Bais Din, and numerous Israeli Botei Din operate independently and after a careful evaluation of each case perform geyrus according to Halacha.
How is the organization reacting to the scandal of its former director?
The director of EJF involved in the regrettable personal scandal has resigned and has no role in the organization. EJF has added the highly regarded Rabbi Chaim Blum to its staff to assist it with expanding its rabbinic leadership and key personnel in its offices in the US, Europe and Israel. Its remarkable achievement in affiliating with a network of Botei Din and advancing order to the chaotic geyrus scene is to say the least a formidable accomplishment.
Five leading Gedolei Yisroel (Harav Yosef Sholem Eliyashiv, shlita, Harav Aaron Leib Shteinman, shlita, Harav Chaim Kanievski, shlita, Harav Yitzchok Scheiner, shlita, and Harav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, shlita) have recently written Mr. Tom Kaplan, the Chairman of EJF, urging the continuation of the work of the organization. The three heads of the Halachic Committees (Harav Reuven Feinstein shlita – USA, Dayan Ehrentreu – Europe, and Harav Shmuel Eliezer Stern –Av Bais Din of Harav Shmuel Wozner – Israel) have urged the Botei Din around the world to continue their work under the EJF.
The organization’s activities have not been limited to geyrus support programs. It has partnered with numerous well-known kiruv organizations (Gateways, Ohr Someach, Lev Leachim, Hidabroot, Arachim and Nefesh Yehudi) to encourage Jewish youth to marry Jews.
We are extremely disappointed that Rabbi Dunner has chosen to exploit the regrettable circumstances of the scandal to discredit Gedolei Yisroel and the Eternal Jewish Family. It is our hope that all Jews who seek the truth and who cherish kedushas yisroel (the sanctity of the Jewish nation) will appreciate our efforts to set the record straight.
Rav Dunner Responds to EJF Attack
No Punches Pulled
Published on Monday, January 11, 2010 -
By Rabbi Aba Dunner
GO TO THE WEBSITE BELOW TO READ THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GEDOLIM FROM EJF!
A small quote:
......."Tropper is a fraud. The organization he created is in his image
and is therefore a fraud too. The creators of that image are
fraudsters and hucksters who are trying desperately to keep the
line to Mr Kaplan's millions open. The chareidi world feels
diminished and tainted and wishes they would go away and the
chilul Hashem would stop"................... ♦
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=5595