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Rabbis = Gang Members?
13:14 Oct 12 2013
Times Read: 511




WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — An eight-member kidnap team tied to a pair of rabbis using violence to get a religious divorce suited up for the task at a New Jersey warehouse by donning Halloween masks and bandannas, a newly updated federal complaint states.



One suspect wore a garbage bag over his clothes while another slipped on a Metallica T-shirt on top of his clothes.



The group had planned the kidnapping of an Orthodox Jewish man to beat him into giving his wife a religious divorce. They "discussed their plan for assaulting the husband" on the night of Oct. 9, including potentially using an electric cattle prod and other devices, the complaint states.



After an undercover FBI agent left to get the fictitious husband, other agents swarmed the warehouse and arrested the eight men, culminating a sting operation that included video and audio surveillance of the plotting, according to the complaint. Inside the Middlesex County, N.J., warehouse, agents found masks, rope, surgical blades, plastic bags, a screwdriver and ceremonial items that would have been used to record the divorce — known as a "get" — once granted.



Orthodox women who are unable to obtain a get from their estranged husbands cannot remarry in the faith.



The eight men on the "kidnap team" were tied to accused masterminds of the plot: Rabbi Martin "Mordachai" Wolmark, the head of Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, N.Y.; and Rabbi Mendel Epstein, a prominent ultra-Orthodox divorce mediator in Brooklyn, N.Y., who this summer published a Bill of Rights of a Jewish Wife.



The group allegedly would charge the wife $10,000 each for the three rabbis on a religious court to approve the kidnapping, and $50,000 to $60,000 to hire the thugs who would do the actual violence.



law-enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said Wednesday's arrests were the direct result of a 2011 case in which a Lakewood. N.J., couple, David and Judy Wax, were accused of kidnapping an Israeli national in an attempt to force him to divorce his estranged wife in Israel.



More arrests will follow "like dominoes," the source said. The Wax case has been stalled in federal court for two years.



Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a Yeshiva University professor of medical ethics and longtime spiritual leader of Community Synagogue of Monsey, said Friday that no religious court can authorize violence to coerce a divorce under Jewish law.



"The idea that a beth din (religious court) can issue an order for coercion is baloney, a hoax," Tendler said.



While the use of coercion is found in Jewish tradition, the get must be given willingly. He noted that the use of violence ended with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Before that, "we gave whiplashes and that fortunately disappeared," Tendler said.



Coercion today is social and community pressure, such as a rabbi refusing to wed the child of a man under rabbinical sanction or hold a prayer service minion for the person when a family member dies, the professor said.



Monsey Rabbi David Eldensohn, a rabbinical court member, said beating a man into signing a religious divorce makes the separation invalid.



I'm shocked that people who call themselves rabbis would get involved in coercion," he said. If a woman obtains a get in such a manner and remarries, "her marriage is not legal and she would be considered living in sin. If she has children, the children are considered born out of wedlock, and that's considered a disgrace in the community."



In conversations that undercover FBI agents secretly recorded, Epstein said husbands could be persuaded to give the divorce by "tough guys" who used karate and handcuffs and sometimes put plastic bags over the husbands' heads.



A preferred method involved a cattle prod, he said.



Tendler and others were taken back by Wolmark's alleged role.



"He's a very intelligent fellow, and he's American," Tendler said. "I can't imagine him getting involved in such a dirty business."



Tendler said Epstein has a different reputation: "I've been with him on matters. I found him to be unreliable."



Community residents viewed Wolmark as a respectable man from a good family who is generous with his charity, time helping people get jobs and advice.



"He's known to be very knowledgeable about the laws and how to write a religious divorce," said Detective Shlomo Koenig of the Rockland County Sheriff's Office and a Kaser, N.Y., deputy mayor. "People use him for legitimate divorces."



Students only had praise for Wolmark.



"He's very warm and welcoming to all of the young men and boys in the yeshiva," said Ariel Goodman, 22, who lives in the school's dormitory. "His great knowledge in Torah, and his Torah way of life is something we all strive for while we learn in his yeshiva."



The FBI arrested Wolmark, Epstein and the eight other men Wednesday. They were ordered held without bail until federal court hearings in New Jersey next week. The complaint claims the group kidnapped and tortured as many as 24 Orthodox Jewish men through the years.



Among those arrested was Ariel Potash of Monsey. His role was described as the "shliach," the person assigned to take possession of the signed religious divorce document. The alleged kidnap team: Jay Goldstein, aka "Yaakov;" Moshe Goldstein; Binyamin Stimler; David Hellman; Simcha Bulmash; Avrohom Goldstein and Sholom Shuchat.



Elya Amsel, a Hasidic activist in Brooklyn said he was the victim of a similar "goon squad" during a child-custody battle in the mid-1990s. He agreed that the arrests of David and Judy Wax likely prompted the sting operation. The same FBI special agent signed both criminal complaints. Since the couple's arrest in July 2011, prosecutors have not sought an indictment.



Mitchell Ansell, David Wax's lawyer, said the negotiations and delays in the case were routine. He said the Waxes were not cooperating with law enforcement and that they did not know any of those arrested this week.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/11/rabbis-fbi-divorce-sting/2969495/