Eternal Jewish Family strikes out?

Recipients and Publicity wrote:

The Present Situation of EJF cannot rely on old articles.

Dear anonymous:

Yes, the link you cite to the page at shemayisrael.com is known but it is not to the point and it shows that your are avoiding the points.

As has been pointed out, that dated article describes events in 2006. It was a year or two after the EJF started and no-one really knew what they were about. Sure who wouldn't want to raise the standard of Halachah in any field? Especially if fancy free conventions invited all takers to come enjoy a weekend or two at the expense of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation.

But, as the dust has settled and controversy upon controversy has erupted about the EJF, under Tom Kaplan's and Rabbi Tropper's guidance, that more and more Rabbonim have lost faith in it, both from the left and the right.

Since 2006, the top Rosh Yeshiva at YU, Rav Hirschel Schechter and with him the RCA and its key Bais Din have dropped out after the EJF invited Rabbi Nochum Eisenstein from the Bais Din LeInyonei Giur in Eretz Yisroel to speak at one of its conventions last year (2007) and he flat-out stated, in the name of Rav Eliashiv supposedly, that rabbis who wear colored clothes or who do not believe in the literal Six Days of Creation are not qualified to be dayanim on a beis din for giur.

Now why he had to drag in such an impolitic point of hashkafa into the situation is not clear (is anyone going to test rabbis to know the truth if they believe the RAMBAM or the Mekubolim were right, or who is the "greater" Godol or Lamdan or Illui or Boki BeShas: Rav J.B. Soloveitchik zt"l or Rav Shach zt"l or maybe Rav Yoel Tetelbaum zt"l? it was not fair of him), but it succceeded in convincing the entire Modern Orthodox movement in America to have nothing to do with the EJF, Rabbi Tropper and of course Rav Eisenstien. Strike one.

Rabbi Tropper tried his hardest to come up with all sorts of excuses but his attempt at being a spinmeister failed and he lost his left flank (because most geirim spend a lot of time with Modern Orthodox shulls and rabbis before moving on, if they ever do.)

Then with the issur the BADATZ has now issued against the EJF, Rabbi Tropper has lost his right wing (he never really had it, but at least they were not against him openly.)

As things stand now that the BADATZ has made it's moves and seems to be that it will continue an active campaign to discredit the EJF as it calls upon Rabbonim to stay clear of EJF, the very ehrliche Charedim will not touch or approve of EJF activities with a ten foot pole. EJF has become toxic, because now the BADATZ has paskened that it's as treif as chazir basically, what else to call it? Strike two.

So what does that leave EJF and Rabbi Tropper? Old articles archived on the Internet? It won't be long (well, Jewish time, it may take longer) before someone tells shemayisrael.com that they are carrying old news and that the BADATZ has already said the EJF should be shunned not praised.

So to look at the EJF's own PRESENT website is very instructional.

It does not have posted any haskomas of any rabbonim on its website! Why? From all those Rabbis in the shemayisrael.com article how many of them have given a clear written haskoma on their own official letterheads stating for all the world to see that they bless and approve of the EJF?

So far EJF has not produced one letter or haskoma, and poor Rabbi Dr. Eidensohn wants them to come up with a "teshuva" yet when they can't even produce a single written haskoma to share with the world. Nor a peeps or a hint on their website or brochures. What are they afraid of? Either they have the goods or not.

You know, if a poor tzedaka collector comes to people's doors, so often they give the poor guy so many hassles to produce a letter from a Rov, and often they are so scared that they flash the letter as you open the door to "farvorn" any embarrassing questions, so kal vachomer an organization that is not just collecting a few dollars from strangers (they don't need to, the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation does it for them) but it's gearing up to organize and collect all the gentiles who wish to convert and channel them en masse to batei din that they have chosen -- do they not need to prove to Klal Yisroel, whom they wish to impress and to gain their confidenece, to come up with at least three letters of support from three really accepted GEDOLIM ? (equivalant to at least three notable and reliable dayonim and greater than the dayanim who lead the 14 batei din cited on the EJF website.)


In fact, can they come up with official letters from those self-same 14 batei din they claim to use who will say on their stationary and signed by each and every member of each beis din that they are 100% behind the EJF effort and approve of all its doings because they have checked things out no less than they would check out any eid (witness) or food for kashrus fitness?

They send mashgichim to the ends of the Earth to see if factories are putting in or keeping out the right chemicals in cans of tuna and that a few dolphins are not snuck into the tuna catch by mistake, how about if they check out with the same zerizus if EJF is putting in and keeping out the right or the wrong gentiles from joining Klal Yisroel as potential geirim, and prove to the world that they have not become the rubber-stamp institutions of a billionare-global and his Rabbi svengali whom they really know nothing about.

In any case, if you read the shemayisrael.com article, it just says that a certain closed group, Rav Reuven Feinstein, Marvin Jacob and Tom Kaplan came to town with Rabbi Tropper. This group works together. They are Rabbi Tropper's people. Yet, pray tell, if Marvin Jacob and Tom Kaplan are so involved in EJF why is there nothing about that on its website? Shouldn't it have a listing of a Borad of Governors?

Aren't the public who cares about this entitled to know who the powers that be are, and not have to run around doing Google searches to learn about Tom Kaplan and his elusive family of entrepreneurs. They are obvioulsy brimming over with new "chaps" (brainwaves) and who knows what they are planning next? To bring back all the Conversos (the many Spanish and Portuguese people who now claim they come from the forcibly converted Morranos of the 1400s and 1500s.) Or maybe they are planning on bringing back the Aseres HaShevatim, the Ten Lost Tribes? as there are organizations doing that as well. Who knows, when you have billions of dollars on tap, time to think big thoughts, your are idealistic, and you want to save not just the Jews but the world and do "Tikkun Olam" (Tom Kaplan has a penchant for devoting plenty of funds to save wild animals too) then anything goes. It's very scary. And that's why the BADATZ says let's end the games now, no ifs, ands, or buts. And the MO's have long stormed out of the room with hurt little egos. Oh well, there goes the best laid schemes of mice and men.

And then that leaves Rabbi Reuven Feinstein, and if he is such a chosid of EJF why can't they post a nice "michtav brocha" or perhaps a real genuine haskoma on his yeshiva's official stationary that states that he approves 100% of EJF etc. But no they can't come up with this either and there is certainly no sign of it on the website when so many blogs have no problem posting all kinds of original documents.

And what about a Va'ad HaRabbonim or an OFFICIAL Rabbinical Board. All such organizations have one. Torah Umesorah (who also have their own in-house Bais Din by the way) publishes its rabbinical board on its letterheads and publications, even though it has no website. Every tzedaka and public mosad has a rabbinical board, and they know they have to come up with that or else, so why is EJF avoiding this obvious requirement? They only have themselves to blame for making the outside world suspicious about them.

One intriguing question that remains is who runs the day to day affairs of EJF? Is is a man or a woman. Are any women involved in making any executive decisions within EJF? We have already been told that Guma what's his name is the son of Tom Kaplan's sister, and that Guma too is active with EJF, so what about Guma's Mom or for that matter Tom Kaplan's wife, who one website about him says that she shares much of his business work. So is she in any way involved with EJF beyond double-signing the checks? This is crucial because a beis din does not accept the testimony of a woman, so that great care needs to be exercised that only Jewish men, ideally talmidei chachomim and not any recent baalei teshuva from Rabbi Tropper's Baal teshuva yeshiva are running errands for him and EJF at the same time, they must be trustworthy known yirei shomyim who should manage the afairs of an organization that wishes to be the "clearing house" for gentiles who wish to convert and guide then to batie din.

Is strike three on the horizon of Horizons? Time will tell.