More of Lopin's lies and distortions regarding the seminaries

Yerachmiel Lopin's flights of fantasy and outright lies are getting worse. Having pinned his hopes on the CBD to destroy the seminaries and the IBD - he has been had a tough time of it since the CBD joined the IBD and issued a joint psak that was similar to what the IBD has been saying all along. Due to the odious task of having to read through Lopin's posting, I am going to start this post and add more material to it later.

 Lopin's lies: "...Daniel Eidensohn’s Daas Torah Blog, which has always been the voice of Meisels and guilty seminary staff as argued by Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz. Their agenda has always been to minimize acknowledging Meisels’ sexual abuse (even though he faces civil court charges of rape and attempted rape by two of his alumni)."

Lopin's strategy has always been to present conjecture with wildly exaggerated claims presented as facts. I have simply stated that evidence is needed before accepting allegations as true. Contrary to Lopin, conjecture is not the same as evidence. Lopin seems to believe that insisting on evidence is to "minimize acknowledging Meisels sexual abuse" and is therefore wrong. What has become clear to mostly everyone except for Lopin and his peanut gallery - the case does not involve the rape of 40 girls, nor does it involved the cover up of sexual abuse by the staff nor is there any evidence to support the absurd RICO claims that the seminaries were constituted as houses of prostitution for Meisels pleasure and to defraud the parents. What is clear is that Meisles is unfit to be in chinuch and he has been removed. Lopin is not a prophet and his visions and his reckless allegations are not the same as truth. Lopin's filthy claims and attempt to paint me as a supporter of Meisles should be beneath response - but there seem to be some naive people who forget that guilt is established by evidence not by the rantings of  demagogues.
 
Lopin's lies:"The enlarged beis din’s majority was guided by a Haredi “sixth Shulchan Aruch” that no scandal can ever be allowed to close up institutions that provides jobs to people from choshuv (important) families. Under this perversion of commonsense and halacha (Jewish law), the reputations and jobs of important families overrode the safety and well-being of students...."

There is no such rule. Rav Sternbuch told me explicitly that the concern for viability of a yeshiva never takes precedent over the welfare of a child. There was never a time that the IBD or the CBD felt it was permissible to endanger a student for the sake of the existence of the seminaries. Here is a clear example of Lopin making up a lie rather than accept the fact that the seminaries are in fact not a danger to their students.

Lopin's lies: "How in the world did a yeshiva get so entangled with a cell phone company. The lawsuit by Yarmish/Zap Cellular alleges RICO violations. Eidensohn screamed “blood libel” when Yarmish, Meisels and Rabbi Gartner were sued by parents unable to get refunds after they withdrew their daughters per the psak of the CBD. One Jew’s heter arcaos (permission to sue a Jew in secular courts) is another man’s blood libel."

Lopin is lying when he indicates that I am against RICO suits. If Lopin bothered reading what I wrote I objected to the RICO suit which alleged a conspiracy of Meisels creating the seminaries solely as houses of prostitution for his pleasure and to defraud parents. Such a claim is not only absurd, it is a tremendous slander for all the girls who have attended the seminaries as well as the staff. It is an incredible chilul hashem. That criticism has absolutely nothing to do with the appropriateness of RICO suites in general. Lopin cares nothing for the collateral damage he causes as long as he can slander chareidim.

Lopin's lies: "Yes, Malinowitz and Eidensohn’s nephew are the two most important political figures in Haredi Bet Shemesh. They partner on all sorts of projects including schools, and are now talking about a hareidi initiative on sex abuse to undercut Magen which does support reporting sex crimes to the police."

My nephew  is not "now talking about a hareidi initiative on sex abuse to undercut Magen  which does support reporting sex crimes to the police." 1)His program has been in operation for a long time. 2) Furthermore his program is not undercutting Magen nor was it created to undermine Magen - as can be seen from my recent post about his program which includes a letter from one of Magen's staff. 3) Furthermore my nephew's program in fact works with the police and reports sex crimes to the police. Not all parents want to go to the police and that is true of Magen's clients also. Lopin tries to create hatred and divisiveness rather than taking the trouble of understanding the facts.


Lopin's lies:  "Now we are again assured by Eidensohn that the seminaries are sold to Rabbi Gedaliah Weinberger “a prominent member of Agudas Yisroel.” For the record, he is “prominent” because he is wealthy, not because he has any educational credentials. He was Chair of Agudah’s lay board until 2013. He did Agudah’s dirty work of maintaining connections with mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner after an ugly sexting scandal, because Jews owed him “hakkaros hatov” (gratitude) and “the other candidates are not much better then him in terms of behaviors.” He sounds like is the perfect man to replace Elimelech Meisels. "

Here Lopin see fit to smear Rabbi Weinberger by equating his role in dealing with Anthony Weiner as a community leader with the immoral activity of Meisels.  Yes Jewish community leaders need to deal with a variety of immoral characters who hold views and conduct themselves in disgusting ways. Whether there was a need to give aid and comfort to Anthony Weiner is a legitimate question that good men can strongly disagree. However that provides no justification for equating Rabbi Weinberger to Meisels and basically saying that the new owner of the seminaries is no different than the former one.

Lopin's lies: "Eidensohn’s “leak” is once again, highly selective, and actually undermines his arguments. Remember, the dispute initially pitted 3 rabbis of the CBD against 3 rabbis of the IBD. Rabbi Gartner refused to join the dissent of the IBD leaving only Rabbis Shafran and Malinowitz. All we see of the two-rabbi dissent is that they don’t think any seminary staff are culpable, meaning five rabbis including Brudny felt there was some staff culpability. But then we have Malinowitz dissenting from his dissent partner, Shafran, and going solo to declare:...So we now know that 6 out of seven dayanim thought there were red flags. In my opinion the administrators should be in trouble for either willfully ignoring the red flags, or being too color blind or stupid to notice them.

Lopin obvously has not read the full minority opinion and is so obsessed with seeing disputes amongst the dayanim that aren't there that  he grossly misunderstands the last page of the minority pask that I published -  as a dispute between Rav Shafran and Rav Malinowitz. More importantly he falsely characterizes the nature of the joint psak and the nature of the minority dissent. A commentator - Ish - to Lopin's post states:

BTW R’ Malinowitz’s dissent is from the joint psak which finds a need to sanction one of the staff members. After a very long hebrew explanation by R’ Shafran why he finds no need to sanction the person in question — or anyone else — R’ Malinowitz, who in his signature to the main psak [which you posted} writes that he agrees with every word written by R’ Shafran, adds an English summary of what was written in Hebrew by Rav Shafran — it was unquestionably not a dissent[...]

 In response to a ridiculous response by Lopin to the above Ish continues:

I think you are being disingenuous. The whole purpose of a joint beis din was to find some way to get back accreditation for the seminaries. Otherwise, the IBD was ready to clear the seminaries in accordance with the takonos they implemented. The architecht of the joint beit din was Rabbi Gartner. Rabbi Shafran made it clear that only a perversion of halachah allows censure of that staff member (the acrimony to which you refer in an earlier post). Rabbi Gartner made sure that the IBD would allow a vague censure on which everyone could sign. Then CBD dissented with a stronger censure OF ONE PERSON, and the remainder of the IBD dissented on that vague censure, but accepted it as necessary in the real world. You didn’t read the nineteen pages before R’ Malinowitz’s signature. There was nothing substantive added by R’ Malinowitz.

If you want to go with what your eyes see, why does R’ Malinowitz write in his signature to the main ” דעתי במלא המובן כהרר שפרן ואני גם כן כדעת המיעוט והנני חותם בהצטרפות לדעת הרוב “להלכה ולמעשה I’ll allow you to translate that. That’s explicit enough to obviate any need for pilpul about dissent from dissent.

You go with what your eyes see, but don’t force what you see to meet your agenda. This includes R’ Kahane, of whom the JBD writes [and you posted]”ויותר אין להרהר ולפקפק חס ושלום בחזקת כשרותו וצדקתו לחנך בנות ישראל לתורה ולתעודה ” This was bolded in the original and signed by all seven dayanim — and I tell you from what I have indeed seen with my own eyes there is no dissent on that point. If you choose to dissent, then the burden of proof is on you to show proof that people can see with their own eyes that there is any dissent on that point. Even with what is available to the public it is clear that R’ Gartner — at least – is not disgusted by R’ Kahane’s abilities to educate seminary girls.

 [to be continued]