Comments on: New Jersey Rabbis and Politicians – and Crime

By: marcie

marcie — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:48:16 +0000

My experience in Israel a (large) number of years ago was that the Orthodox were the most hypocritical of all! Soldiers and street vendors would openly come on to any girls , but the Orthodox would only hit on the non-Jewish looking ones- I guess figuring that “goys” wouldn’t know any better… As I don’t “look Jewish” I found this happening a lot- imagine their shock when I told them off in Hebrew!!

By: Peter Schogol

Peter Schogol — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:34:45 +0000

David, what on earth have you been reading? I live in the South in the Bible Belt and I work for law enforcement which down here is very Christian and conservative and I’ve never heard anyone say any such a thing.

By: David

David — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:57:20 +0000

These rabbi’s and Madoff have fallen into the negative stereo type that anti-semites like to perpetuate. The damage continues to be done by these news reports. I read on the net (take it for what it is worth) that over 40% of the U.S. population blames the Jews for the financial crises. I have detected a higher level of anti-Semitic attitudes on the web boards and blogs in the last 6 months. Particularly on those inhabited by fundamentalist christians.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:18:28 +0000

All the comments are insightful but miss one important point. Constant studying of Torah and Talmud has endowed our orthodox brethren with knowledge akin to the apple in the garden. In effect, they know too much and can turn this knowledge to their advantage. They will say it brings them closer to God. Maybe. But for some it enhances their rationales for venality. Whether or not this makes them more or less human is irrelevant. What it does make them is a caricature of Bernie Madoff with a slick coating of spirituality. If there was a god and it was me I would run these guys out of the tribe and convert them to be Mormons.

By: Peter Schogol

Peter Schogol — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:29:51 +0000

I’m not in the business of trashing Orthodox Jews (some of my best friends, and all that), but if one is of a mind to stretch definitions (Bill Clinton explaining the opportunities available to a man with a cigar), perhaps swindling can be repackaged as kosher and therefore not a desecration of God’s name?

By: LGreyhawke

LGreyhawke — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:11:34 +0000

I was reading Joseph Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy last night. When a religious Jew acts dishonorably this is known as khillul ha-Shem (desecration of God’s name). While many on this site may be agnostic or atheist, we can assume that the Orthodox rabbis were not. According to Telushkin, khillul ha-Shem is one of the few sins that is unforgivable because it can cause people to doubt their belief in God and to feel alienated from God. Even if the person repents, it is felt they cannot undo the damage. An Orthodox rabbi would be aware of this I should think. While I’m sure they enjoyed the money and benefits of their little adventure, I would be willing to wager that the fruit has turned mighty bitter at this point! Shame on them. (By the way the ethics series by Joseph Telushkin is a terrific read!)

By: Maskil

Maskil — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:04:52 +0000

I have to say that, in my observation the obsessive-compulsive observance that is characteristic of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities appears to pretty much go hand-in-hand with a lack of common decency, ethics and morals. It seems as if – consciously or unconsciously – those with an Orthodox mindset see the one as a substitute for the other. I’ve come to expect to see corruption wherever black hats and coats are part of the dress code.

By: LGreyhawke

LGreyhawke — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:22:16 +0000

The “moral”of that story is QUESTION AUTHORITY!
Unquestioned authority whether it is a Rabbi, Priest, teacher, police officer or politician, is fertile ground for the fruits of abuse.

Many people are blind to the potential of abuse simply because someone is wearing a badge or collar. One can show respect and deference to anothers position without yielding your sense of right and wrong. I suspect Rabbi Kassin’s daughter knew he was a poor excuse for a Rabbi long before the rest of us became aware of his fractured ethics. Pity though… I had three people come up to me at work (I work at a Catholic institution) and make a point of mentioning the “Rabbi gone bad”. After the priest issue, I guess misery loves company.

By: Peter Schogol

Peter Schogol — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:15:27 +0000

I’m wondering what the Syrian Jewish community in New Jersey thinks of their rabbis? Do they expect them to have mastered their yetzer hara — their acquisitive impulse, to be perfumed with sanctity and beyond reproach? Or is it only we religious liberals who invest our rabbis with an aura of unimpeachable wisdom and morality?

We have become Protestantized in our attitude towards the rabbinate. We forget that a rabbi is a teacher of and from tradition and not (outside of Hasidism) inherently a spiritual director. Yet owing to American religion we have evolved the rabbinate into a Jewish clergy certified in couple counseling and Clinical Pastoral Education. A rabbi has become, perforce, a Jewish minister.

We expect perfect piety of our ministers. Do we expect it of our teachers? Should we?

I may be disappointed but I’m not surprised at the rabbis caught in the money-laundering scandal. They have in fact restored my faith that a rabbi is, when all is said and done, a human being for better or worse.

By: David Schwartz

David Schwartz — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:08:49 +0000

I grew up in Deal and lived 2 doors down from Rabbi Nahaim who was arrested. They have huge families and need lots of money to keep their standard of living up. Living in Deal is kind of like living in Indian Hill here in Cincinnati. There are multi-million $$ houses on the beach. You know they are required by their religion to have as many children as they can produce.

The pressure to make money must be huge. When an opportunity to make some easy money comes by it must be hard to resist. The mind will rationalize it. Orthodox rabbi’s are used to rationalizing just about everything they do.