I really hate to see when serious issues like this degenerate into making the perpetrators into victims. The whole mesira thing has really worn out its welcome in my book. No only in this case, but to the sexual abuse phenomenon and subsequent scandals which have been on the agenda of late. If people would behave themselves and if not our community would take appropriate action, we would not even be talking about mesira.

Spinka-gate should be taken as a wake-up call to our community to demand a greater financial openness for its schools, yeshivos, and tzedaka organizations (which have recently become “big business” if you peruse the mailboxes and social calendars). Often, finances are managed by a chosen few who know what comes in, what goes out, and to whom. And we are not only talking about scamming the government as was the case here. It’s much more than that. After all, these monies being managed are a public trust. Things are run way too “heimish” for my tastes with little accountability. Many “boards” of directors, trustees that appear on organizational letterheads are merely a facade for who really runs the institutions. Waste in operating costs, tuition breaks that are given which no one else seems to know about, and people being paid for cushy, fluff jobs are all violations this public trust. Chazal are replete with the lofty standards for Gabbai Tzedaka. They are probably worth some amount of review before giving over the car keys to some administrative leaders.

This family cannot make ends meet unless the father, who is paid double the minimum wage, works 180 hrs. a week (There are only 168 hrs. in a week.) I arrived at the 180 hrs/wk. based on an annual $150,000 salary which a yeshiva administrator stated that is the annual income which enables a Jewish family to meet tuition fee requirements, in addition to its other bills.

My son will be going ii’h to mesifta next year. I requested application forms from a number of top-of-the-line mesiftos in the NY Metropolitan area. One of them stated upfront on the application form that the annual tuition fee is $12,600. It may include dorm, but I am not sure. It didn’t say. With tuition fees of such magnitude, I am not sure that $150,000 will be enough.

The problem is not what an individual did. The problem is how we are perceived to react to it as a community

I will start off with an incident that took place in Monsey about 3 yrs. ago. Most readers will be able to relate similar incidents in their communities. A handicapped Jewish girl disappeared on a Friday afternoon from a home that took care a several other girls with various physical and/or mental handicaps. Police was notified and a search party was organized. It consisted of police helicopters, police personnel, and Jewish and gentile volunteers. Baruch HaShem, the girl was found unharmed. Never in the history of our Galus did the authorities of the state that we lived in extend themselves to save Jews in distress. The great majority of the Jews in your list, Mrs. Katz, were born in the USA, or arrived here at a young age. As such, they did not experience organized, systematic anti-semitism. Hence, any Jew, even Russian, Polish, or Hungarian ones that cheat the gov’t, are nothing but frauds. One should not attempt to stir sympathy in their favor or justify their deeds on account of the horrors their parents lived through.

Hungarian Jew

We have big problems-quoting from Chaim Waxman in “Flipping Out”-in 1999 the household income of American Orthodox Jews was almost identical with white Americans $42,304-in New York 52* of households had income of less than 450,000 in 2002.
The issue of our losing people because they can’t afford Orthodoxy must be raised-it is embarrassing doesn’t serve the agendas of either MO or Chareidi Orthodxy.

First, let the Rebbe have his day in court. News reports are just allegations.

Second, if the allegations do turn out to be true, the use of treife money to fund yeshivos will of necessity yield treife chinuch, i.e., GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveichik personally handled the administration of the Brisker Yeshiva to make sure that the donations came only from bona fide sources. He invested a huge amount of time towards this goal because he believed that Jewish chinuch can be built only with untainted money. The goal justifying the means has no place in the Torah.

Your assumption that a public school in apresominantly Jewish neighborhood will be allowed to teach Judaism is wrong.

The “Ben-Gamla” Charter School in Broward County, Florida tried to do that. But the Atheist Enforcers from the public school establishment stopped them. See this link:

http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/13666/

Susan Onori, the charter-school coordinator for the Broward school board, noted that her agency rejected Ben Gamla’s original curriculum, which utilized textbooks replete with menorahs, Stars of David and other religious symbols.

“We felt that was inappropriate for a public school,” she said, adding that the school made changes, and is now in compliance with the law.

“The Ben Gamla school is not religious in nature at all,” stated Onori. “We do not fund public religious schools in the state of Florida.”

Onori vowed that the school would be monitored, and have its charter revoked if it was found to be teaching Judaism.

“They have a contract with us,” she said, “and the contract is very clear about separation of church and state.”

The “malchus shel chessed” proviso is irrelevant, and its inclusion is thus confusing and greatly weakens the point Toby is trying to make.

I don’t know what exactly a “malchus shel chessed” is, but even if the US were not such a malchus, there would be an ethical and halachic imperative to obey its fairly-applied laws.

Here in Baltimore we simply don’t do any of these illegal things in any of our institutions. Many times I have been told that we are naive out of towners who are depriving our yeshiva of money .

Public schools are organized by geography. If there was enough demand to open a public school in a primarily frum neighborhood it would have mostly frum students. Given how sensitive school districts are to being sued (much more sensitive then they should be, in general), the teachers would probably do their best not to offend the parents’ sensibilities.

Would such a school, supplemented with Torah studies in the afternoon, be much worse than a private school? If I understand things correctly, the purpose of Torah study is not academic mastery, but to teach students so they will be more moral people. Learning that a teacher or principal they considered a role model is a thief forces students to re-evaluate everything they learned from that authority figure. They might conclude that stealing is OK as long as you get away with it.

BTW, HILLEL, I support school vouchers. But until that particular battle is won, a different solution is required.

We CAN be sure they are not. At least if you believe that the laws discussed in Sefer Chofetz Chaim are binding.

“was tantamount to announcing to their children that they took certain crimes and misdemeanors lightly.”

And where do their CHILDREN pickup the latest gossip about who is being indicted by some career advancing prosecutor? Perhaps that is the problem.

Innumeracy leads people to believe they can live above their means. This is in the micro (single family) and in the macro (community). A family decides not to add a room to their home because they can’t afford it. If they MUST have more space but nothing nearby is affordable, they move farther away.

Moving rabboninim (with families) into a community where half-million-dollar mortgages are necessary (as a starter) is an excessive financial burden on baal habatim who pay the tuitions that pay the salaries. Doesn’t v’shinantam l’vanecha mean that a father should live in a community where he doesn’t have to work a second job to pay rent/mortgage/tuitions?

Too bad there’s no “Orthodox Community” edition of the computer game SimCity to experiment with “frum urban planning”. I would pay good money to see (in aggregate, not the specific) the average math SAT scores for our black-hatted yeshivas. I think we’re cranking out financial illiterates.

If the yeshivos aren’t generating families that can earn the rent/mortgage to live within walking distance to schools and shuls, either the yeshivos need to increase the business potential of their graduates or the yeshivos ought to move or build satellites in affordable communities. Maybe yeshivos should make a point of setting the example creating one Zevulun for every Issachar that graduates? Or do we really NOT believe that Zevulun gets a full share of Issachar’s learning? We certainly ACT as if we don’t believe it.

If we’re relying on “miraculous infusions” of funds to survive, it’s long overdue for an audit. Our frum financial reality checks are bouncing.

KT

Boy - it sure is tempting to read one’s own bias’s into an incident like this one, but I’m not sure I’d want to go there. Let’s not forget that RK [the informant who participated in this scheme and MANY others] is not an insulated Hassid by any standard. If anything he’s MO or non-observant. Further more, many more people participated in this scheme who were not Hassidim as the indictments will soon show. One of my closest friends is a tax lawyer and the bulk of his clients who are in trouble with the IRS are not Hassidic in the least. Some are not Jewish and some are but cut across the entire spectrum with secular and MO very well represented unfortunately. This doesn’t mitigate the crime, but be careful before drawing conclusions about where it’s roots lie.

2) Arguable means (according the the American Heritage Dictionary) “that can be argued about.”

3) Sorry Hillel, Jewish students are entitled to the same public school education everyone else is. Any of us could send our children to the public schols for secular studies and hire m’lamdim to teach our children Torah (or do so ourselves). That most of us (myself included) choose to send our children to yeshivah or day school does not entitle us to steal from the government.

Thank you for analysis of my comments. It is truly appreciated.

I, actually agree with most of your comments. I acknowledge that the yetzer ha’ra within us, is not a product of the general society around. What I was trying to point out, is that neither is it a product of insularity.

I think you would agree to that.

My point was that while it is extremely distressing that those of us, who, by virtue of our dress, or acknowledged association with the Orthodox Jewish community, engage in totally unacceptable (legally, halachically, and most important, morally) behavior, I maintain these serious lapses exist in all segments of society.

This does not mean that we shouldn’t engage in serious cheshbon hanefesh; I think we should take away the lesson of how precarious our moral compass is and how easy it is to fail to live up to what should be obvious standards.

I still think that it is overly simplistic to attribute serious moral flaws to insularity.

Orthonomics:

Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. I think you ‘hit the nail on the head’. I think that the sheer arrogance of grand fraudulent schemes, are the common denominator that result in federal indictments.

The Orthodox Jewish community contributes millions of dolloars to the Government–Ciry, State, adn Federal. Much of this money is allocated to “education.”

But the Government(s) then turn around and tell us Orthodox Jews that, while all children are equal in America, some are more equal than others–Jewish students are NOT entitled to the same funding as secular public school students.

So, we Jewish parents must pay for “education” twice–once for the “public” schools, and again for our own schools.

Our school administrators are starved for money to properly run their schools. Teachers are paid late; students are deprived of adequate services.–This is a national scandal!

It was not always thus. Before Horace Mann started the secular wave of education in the Massachusets school system, in the late 1800’s, Government gave full aid and assistance to all religious schools. The “separation of church and state” is a very recent “constitutional” creation, by secularists whose goal it is to cripple and ultimately dismantle the religious school systems in this country.

…And it’s working. The Catholic school system–this country’s largest parochial system–is closing schools, left and right.

Without justifying the Rebbe’s activities, I think it is only fair to observe that the Rebbe used the money to fund his chool system, which is under enormous financial pressure, as are all parochioal school systems.

The take-home lesson for us is that, if we want to avoid such problems in the future, we need to devote more of our community’s resources to adequately funding our intentionally-starved school systems.

Saying Tehillim and giving lectures on morality are not enough!

In addition, to the poster who suggested Choshen Mishapat should become standard for men and especially women, I would also like to point out that we as parents need to make sure our daughters believe they are equal partners in the financial dealings of the household. No one should sign on the line of their next 1040 without knowing where the income and where the deductions came from. Every single one of the “victimless crimes” leaves a wife and children as the victims when their families are torn apart.

This is really an indication of part of the problem. There is no argument at all, and comparing the record of the American government to the currupt, antisemitic tyrannies of Eastern Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries is outrageous. [Editor's note: The word "arguably" means "able to be demonstrated by argument." A few other commenters made the same error]

Finally, Halacha does recognize collective entities, both in dinei mamaonot and in issur veheter. Perhaps a good way to start recognizing that deeper in our hearts is to remind ourselves, and teach our children, that it is assur to speak lashon Hara about communities as well as individuals. As any number of posekim, most prominently R. Moshe Feinstein, ZT”L have pointed out over and over again, there is no excuse for cheating the US or State governemtns out of taxes, or on government programs, nor is it permissible to cheat corporate entites such as insurance companies.

If you doubt Rabbi Adlerstein’s premise that the scandals seem to be unevenly distributed among different communities, then I accept that you disagree and the rest of what we are saying will be sound like total nonsense to you.

I do not doubt Rabbi Adlerstein’s observations, or his conjecture about what this is happenning, but I accept that you could prove that he is wrong.

But I would, even in your view, disagree with this statement you made: “Maybe these people are unfortunately absorbing the values of the society we live in.”

Yechiel Cohen said something similar above: “Why that is quite simple! It is an unfortunate negative influence from non-Jewish society!” (Actually, I am mistapek whether that post was be-loshon sagi nohar.)

This type of thinking is very counterproductive, and I would argue based on a false belief. It is an attempt to externalize of that is bad. It follows that WE are essentially good, and that whatever is bad comes from outside influences on us.

This is simly not true. We are, of course, both good and bad. My yetzer ha-ra is not a product influence from the surrounding culture or society. It is essential to who I am as a Jew and as a human being. It is part of my personality and part of my nefesh. Every approach to Hassidus, mussar, and machshava states this.

If we could create the most insular society that one can imagine, it would still have zenus, geneiva, ga’ava, ka’as, loshon hora, sin’as chinam, hamas, shochad, etc. The 1st churban was for shefichas damim, giluy arayos, and avodas kochavim. The 2nd churban was for sin’as chinam. We cannot attribute these sins to outside influences.