Sent: Monday, October 12, 2015 10:00 PM
Bs"d R. ... shlita shalom rav, how are things, long time no speak. It's come to my attention that certain individuals (bloggers et. al) are identifying me as one of the Rabbonim who signed off on the Tamar Epstein heter of kiddushei ta'us. This is totally untrue. Please feel free to disseminate the gist of this email as you deem proper on a need-to-know basis.
All the best and have a 'gutten vinter'
Tzvi Gartner
ב״ה
לכל מאן דבעי למידע
הובא
לידיעתי, שנתפרסמה בשוק, שאני הייתי מהב״ד שעקרו הקידושין של ״אהרן
פרידמן״ להאשה ״תמיר עפשטיין״, ובצירוף הרבנים הרב שלום קמנצקי והרב צבי
גרטנר.
ומצאתי לעצמי חובה להודיע, שדברים הנ״ל דברי שקר הם.
מעולם
לא עסקתי בדברים כאלו. ולא היה לי שום שייכות לדבר כמו עקירת קידושין של
הזוג הנ״ל. את הרבנים הרב שלום קמנצקי והרב צבי גרטנר אני לא מכיר. ומעולם
לא דברתי עמהם, ותו לא מידי.
ולאות אמת באתי על החתום ביום ל׳ תשרי א׳
דר״ח מרחשון תשע״ו
גבריאל שטערן
My brother Rav Dovid Eidensohn sent this today
I spoke to Rabbi Gavriel Stern that somebody named as a signer on the
permission for Tamir to remarry and he vehemently rejected it. I sent
in his remarks in Hebrew to my brother. I know people who are seeking
out a name of people who signed for her to remarry. So far, the only
thing that makes sense is that Rabbi Greenblatt relied on Rabbi
Kaminetsky and his son. And I know Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky and also
somebody who got a Kesubo from him and it was invalid. He does not know
the laws of Gittin, and he once asked me where in the laws of Gittin
does it say about writing names. If he doesn't know that, he is surely
not a Gadol and he surely has no right to tell Tamir to remarry without a
GET.
We know a few other rabbis who have in the past indicated
that they would annul a marriage, but none of them are "Gedolim" and
Rabbi Greenblatt told me that he did what he did because Gedolim wanted
it done. I doubt if any Gedolim signed it, because the big names that I
spoke to all were furious about it.
Rabbi Mordechai Willig was so
angry that he almost sputtered when he talked about it. Nobody believes
that any Gadol who knows Gittin laws signed the paper, and the
Kaminetskies I know are not experts in Gittin. I talk about Gittin
because I have the warm backing of Reb Moshe Feinstein and Reb Yosef
Shalom Elyashev and Reb Shmuel HaLevi Wosner and other Gedolei HaDor. I
did my shimush homework for many years, learning under Reb Aharon
Kotler and every Gadol I could meet. But today, who knows the laws of
Gittin? A lot of them are making it up as they go along, and the result
will be many questionable children in the coming generation.
I
know that these people are concerned about women who need a GET. But why
are they not concerned about babies born mamzerim? After all, some of
them will be ladies.
Will the real signor of the Heter nisuin please stand up and be counted.
ReplyDeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteIs there any possibility that the conspiracy-type theory that this was just a ploy, in order to convince Mr. Friedman to give a get, and that there was no marriage ceremony? Nothing else seems to make any sense. It is uncharacteristic of Rav Shmuel Kaminetzky to behave this way.
(I feel that Rav Dovid Eidensohn's remarks detract from the two letters above. Can his remarks be moved to a new post?)
תאמינו לי, אני יודע הבריאות שגבריאל שטרן אכן חתם על ההתיר, רק עכשיו מפחד שהרבנים יפסיקו לצרף אותו לבתי דין, הוא הודה שחתם לפני רב מוכר בברוקלין ומבקש דרך לצאת מהבוץ
ReplyDeleteZiggy it is inherently part of reality that an unknown commenter's comment that says "believe me" are not believed. Especially to assert that someone is a liar.
ReplyDeleteOne more point. If he is supposedly such fickle person, who will not only supposedly deny his actions, but will lie so brazenly, is his halachic psak worth anything? Under such circumstances, certainly not. So, either we have a heter from a dishonest, fickle, person - which is worthless. Or, he never gave a heter at all. Either way, Ms. Epstein is married to Mr. Friedman.
ReplyDeleteThen, we might as well just give Harav Stern back his well-earned reputation, and not anonymously slander him with these falsehoods.
If you don't want to believe thats fine, I can only tell you that be admitted to someone that he DID sign and is looking to get out of the situation
ReplyDelete.Gavriel Stern signed seruv against AF, together with A Ralbag and SK, despite knowing its a sham. He signed numerous kefias with AR and YB. He now says . Believe at your own peril. מעולם
ReplyDeleteלא עסקתי בדברים כאל
I've heard it was R' Fuerst of Chicago.
ReplyDeleteThat wouldn't be a first for him.
ReplyDeleteWell, well. If true, then he has clearly revealed himself as incompetent and unworthy of being a dayan.
ReplyDeleteSTRANGE:
ReplyDeleteMany Posters are talking like a Heter to be oiker kidushin is a common everyday occurrence...??????
Please enlighten me .?
Can anyone relate a Prior case in our past history anywhere in the Torah world where a true Godolim issued and carried out this so called "ANNULMENT"? akiras kedushin? ??Other then the world renowned Reb Moshe in a isolated case????
He's right, he never was involved in עקירת קידושין he was involved in declaring that the kidushin had no tokef from the get go since it was a mekach taut!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteStern is apparently a sly operator and worded his letter in a very clever way
ReplyDeleteYour track record is poor. Formerly you claimed b'vada'us that R' Gartner signed, which we now know is false.
ReplyDeleteI believe Rabbi Gartner, II DONT believe Rabbi Stern
ReplyDeleteA dayan is suppose to livtsoa et hadin veYikov hadin et hahar, lo saguru mipnei ish, where are all these pachdanim coming from?
ReplyDeleteaccording to R. Dovid Eidensohn, R. N. Greenblatt told him that he officiated on the marriage and their civil marriage papers was recorded in a Memphis newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI believe there is a gemoro that 'Cherev bo leolom when there is corruption in Din. we see great tragedy in Israel today but no leaders want to quote the gemoro in Shabbos 139b which ironically spells KOTAL to kill and there the gemoro states that "IF YOU SEE A GENERATION RIDDLED WITH TRAGEDY< KNOW THAT THE JUDGES ARE CORRUPTED"! It is their actions that bring us tzoros. Rabboisai enough is enough we must force our supposed leaders to remove the bad apples from their midst or we will continue to see tragedies. I am sick and tired of hearing general post tragedy rhetoric that sounds like this. " WE MUST READ TEHILLIM. WE MUST STOP LOSHON HORA" ACCEPT UPON YOURSELF TO DO AN EXTRA MITZVA . etc etc.............................
ReplyDeleteI want to see someone quoting this Gemoro and take concrete steps to uproot rabbinic corruption across the board.
The issue is not who you believe, it's whether your statements are believable. You claimed you had a solid source re. R' Gartner, his close friend who heard straight from his mouth (if I remember correctly). That turned out to be a falsehood. It does not inspire confidence in your claims regarding R' Stern.
ReplyDeleteBerel,
ReplyDeleteRight on! But it is worse than you make it. Who says that Reb Moshe would permit negating a marriage? I had a case whereby a woman needed a GET. Her husband told her he would give the GET but would not allow a rabbi in his office. I found a teshuva from Reb Moshe that permitted this somehow. I got a rabbi who agreed to do the GET but stipulated that he cannot claim that the GET was kosher he will onlly say that it was done with the permission of Reb Moshe. I was upset at that and called up Reb Moshe. The Gaboi told me, "Just because it says this in the Teshuva Sefer of Igeres Moshe, does that mean we have to do it?" I was stunned. I called up Rabbi Avigder Miller. He told me, yes, that is true. Reb Moshe got older, the community became more Torah-dik, and these fantastic pesakim that have no source in normal rabbinics are no longer done. Afterwards, I spoke to Rabbi Margolin of Ezra Torah and he told me a similar story about Rav Henkin who left no teshuvose despite the fact that he surely wrote thousands of them. Rav Margolin explained that he kept pestering Rav Henkin to publish some teshuvose, but Rav Henkin always refused. When Rav Henkin became old and weak, and could not longer work as he once did for Ezra Torah, he told Rabbi Margolin that he wanted to publish some teshuvose. Rav Margolin replied, "You cannot help me with Ezra Torah in your present state, and therefore I cannot neglect Ezra Torah and help you with your teshuvose. Thus, there are no teshuvose from Rav Henkin. Rav Margolin explained that the early teshuovse of Rav Henkin in a world devoid of Torah were too lenient for latter times. So he refused to publish. And when he decided to publish, it was too late. Rav Henkin's grandson took the teshuvoe of his grandfather to Israel and the airline lost them. רצון יריאו יעשה
While there is a כתב סירוב document that carries the signature of Rabbi Stern together with those of Rabbis Belsky, Kamenetzky, Schechter (YU) and others, that has nothing to do with the concept of ביטול קדושין. Ziggy admitted that he never saw Rabbi stern's signature and that he only heard from another rabbi that it exists. WOULD YOU REVEAL THE NAME OF THE רב who saw Rabbi stern's signature on Ms. Epstein's היתר נישואין???
ReplyDeleteIt does not inspire confidence in your claims regarding R' Stern.
ReplyDeleteWhile this is true, and Ziggy's claims are misleading; does Rabbi Stern inspire confidence that he is a competent and trustworthy rabbi?
Rabbi Stern writes:
ReplyDeleteשעקרו הקידושין של ״אהרן פרידמן״ להאשה ״תמיר עפשטיין״,
Does he know that her name is תמר?
I know nothing about the fellow. Never heard of him before now. So far the only thing I've seen from him is his claim that he had nothing to do with this, which neither inspires confidence nor precludes it. It's irrelevant, anyhow, if he did not sign the heter.
ReplyDeleteI would guess the first he heard about this was from Dovid Eidenson, who for some reason thinks her name is Tamir. Or it's a typo. It's not the only one in that letter.
ReplyDeletethat has nothing to do with the concept of ביטול קדושין.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe. But he should have mentioned his previous involvement in his letter. Not to mention it is more than a little disingeuous.
I also had not hear about him until a few days ago, over here. But seeing that he was part of the the "beis din" that issued a siruv against Friedman for not giving a get, while..
ReplyDelete1) he never heard Friedmans side of the story
2) Friedman never agreed to his jurisdiction over this case
combined with his claim of never having had contact with Rav Shalom Kaminetzky, makes it sound like there is something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Things do not add up. Who asked him to be part of this ad hoc beis din? What investigation did he do before signing? If his "investigation" did not even include speaking to Rav Shalom Kaminetzky, then it is negatively inspiring to me. And if he did speak with him, then his "failed" memory is certainly negatively inspiring.
If so, I agree he's not trustworthy. But I never expected much from some no-name anyhow, so it's not exactly a surprise.
ReplyDeleteRav Dovid Eidensohn:
ReplyDeleteYour Shimush And personal involvement to our recent Gedolai Yisroel is truly inestimable .
I think your above comment on Reb Moshe and your personal experiences should be turned into a Sefer or Public Shuir for the benefit of the New generation and the young misinformed Rabbinic wannabees ! or so to Rabbonim!
Who actually entertain the Chutpahdik thought to be Chosive and esteemed enough to even Consider to entertain a thought on Annulment of Kidusin!!(a Christin/Reform concept No less)