Haredi Charity Fraud Targets New Yorkers

The New York Post has a report on car donation charities active in New York City. Of those most active, only two met minimum standards set by the Better Business Bureau.

Of those two, one deceives donors into believing their donation helps all children when in fact the money goes only to haredi evangelism.

Another charity fails both the BBB minimum standards test and the deception test. It claims to be helping blind people but really prints haredi religious material for the visually impaired.

The deceptive children's charity, Kars-4-Kids, which presents itself as nonsectarian, claims it helps "children who were on the streets." Yet the money it raises goes to Oorah, a linked organization that, according to the NY Post, claims an "80% success rate" at keeping the children it helps away from goyyim.

I'll show you why that NY Post quote is inaccurate after the jump in the extended post…

…* Brooklyn-based Heritage for the Blind claims to publish "Braille and large-print materials."

What it doesn't spell out publicly - or on its IRS tax forms - is that all of its funding goes to a sister nonprofit, Jewish Heritage for the Blind, which publishes Braille Torahs and other Jewish books.

It raked in nearly $2.4 million in 2005 and used $495,133 for its programs. About $1.65 million went to advertising and $775,361 to salaries.

* Kars 4 Kids says it helps "children who were on the streets."

It doesn't say it raises cash exclusively for Oorah Inc., a New Jersey-based charity that provides religious education for kids of non-observant Jews.

On its Web site, Oorah boasts an "80 percent success rate" teaching its clients "to keep themselves apart from the gentiles."

Kars 4 Kids does spell out its religious affiliation on tax forms to the IRS, and its lawyer contended that links at the bottom of its Web site indicate "the religious focus of the organization."

Kars 4 Kids raised $8.9 million in 2006, and used $7.6 million for charity. Some $1.4 million went for ads.

* The L'chaim to Life Foundation urges New Yorkers to help "someone less fortunate" - but doesn't mention that those "less fortunate" live in Florida, where Bais Chabad Synagogue, which runs the charity, is based. L'Chaim's tax records were not available.

* In contrast, Long Island-based Timothy Hill Ranch, which uses donations to run a 70-acre residential farm for abused, neglected and homeless kids, spells out its Christian ties and on its Web site, and makes them clear to the IRS. Timothy Hill raised $3.4 million and steered $2.2 million to its programs.…

You can read the entire NY Post article here.

You'll note we reported on Oorah-Kars-4-Kids a couple of years ago. I also later turned down Oorah's requests to advertise on FailedMessiah.com.

The Oorah boast of keeping 80% the children it "helps" away from the gentiles is not an accurate quote. It is taken from this webpage on Oorah's site and the actual quote is as follows:

…[The ba'al teshuva  brought up on American popular culture, are deemed bad   influences who, “nothing personal,” are   not welcomed in many yeshivos and many communities. 

    Protecting the Wealth

    While this dynamic plays out in a way that is often   uncomfortable and sometimes outright painful for a newly   religious Jew, it flows from a source that is well supported   throughout the Torah. Jews have an obligation to keep themselves apart from the culture and ways of the gentiles.

    Throughout most of the Orthodox world, the term “religious”   is at least partly measured by the degree to which a person shuns the styles, entertainment and lingo of   the secular world. Most yeshivos discourage or prohibit   television, secular music and movies, which are the   bread-and-butter of secular culture. Families do their   best to keep their children from absorbing the values   that pervade American society – a world that holds   up wealth and pleasure as the true indicators of a life   well lived.

    So what is the well-meaning observant Jew to do? If   he lets secularly oriented children into his child’s   school, he takes a chance on exposing the child –   right there within the walls of the yeshivah –   to exactly the influences he is trying to exclude. Yet   if he doesn’t embrace the newly religious child,   he is essentially sending the child back into the loving   arms of the public school.

    To say the child can come –but he had better   not mention anything about television or hum any Disney   soundtracks – demands of the child an exhausting   level of vigilance and self-control. The child will   probably also need to develop a tolerance for rejection;   he can expect that some of his new classmates will not   be allowed to come play at his house.…

Further down that page, Oorah founder Rabbi Eliyahu Mintz is quoted this way:

Rabbi Eliyohu Mintz reports that Oorah’s “success rate,” measured by children who grow up, marry and raise their own Jewish family, is nearly 80 percent.

What the New York Post did is take two quotes from different aarticles and and join them as one. While clearly Oorah's intent is to separate Jews from non-Jews, and its educational programs stress that, nowhere on the Oorah site do I see a quote bragging about this separation directly.

Still, it is the message non-Jews (and non-haredi Jews) will now get. They will get this message because of Oorah's deception, and because of the widespread view in haredi society that it is okay to cheat gentiles.

Here are PDF archives of the NY Post article, the Kars-4-Kids main page and the Oorah articles page:

Download oorah_etc., NYPost 1-21-08.pdf

Download kars4kids_main_page.pdf

Download oorah_articles_page.pdf

[Hat Tip: Michelle.]

Comments

[zach]

I just wish that there were better reporting on Jewish charities. I rely on Guidestar and Charity Navigator for info - and have eliminated some charities forever due to high salary/donation ratio, but many of them are classified as a church and do not have to submit IRS info.

[samiam]

THEY DESERVED THIS FOR WHAT THEYVE DONE TO JEWISH CHILDREN LIKE MYSELF I WANTED TO GO TO DISCOVER YOU BUT THEY WOULDNT LET ME BECAUSE THEY DIDNT THINK I WOULD BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE TYPES OF GIRLS THAT GO!