Rabbis Arrested By FBI Linked To Former Sefardic Chief Rabbi Of Israel Ovadia Yosef

Sefardic yeshivot and charities in Israel are expected to suffer large losses due to arrests, scandal. Israel police to launch investigation into Shas nonprofits allegedly used to launder money for US ring.

Son of Shas spiritual head reported to have left the New York-New Jersey Syrian Jewish community and returned to Israel only hours before arrests made.

Sephardic yeshivas in Israel may lose big from New Jersey scandal
By Zvi Zrahiya • Ha'aretz

The exposure of the money laundering afair in New Jersey, which allegedly used Israeli yeshivas as part of the scheme, will lead to a drop in contributions to Sephardic religious institutions here, including those affiliated with the Shas party. 

These institutions were already suffering from a steep drop in donations over the past year due to the global financial crisis and the Madoff Ponzi scheme - and the situation will probably only get worse now. These Shas yeshivas are likely to have serious money problems, and may and turn to the state to help them out and increase their funding, say a number of politicians. 

Since the laundered money was transfered via charitable institutions that aid the needy, their funding may also be cut off now. Such organizations provide aid such as clothes, paying for medical care and helping to fund weddings and the expenses of newly married couples. 

Politicians expect the amount of funds contributed to institutions affiliated with or close to Shas, and its spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, will feel the pinch almost immediately. Now that the affair has hit the headlines the worry is that not only will those involved in the scandal have to stop their contributions but that many other donors will also stop giving out of fear of being linked to the affair. 

One of the major figures arrested in the suspected money laundering case is Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, who is considered very close to Rabbi David Yosef, one of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's sons. Ben Haim is also active in the Ovadia family's Yechave Daat organization. Rabbi David Yosef is the head of the Yechave Daat Yeshiva in Jerusalem. 

Ben Haim has been involved in raising funds from rich Syrian-Jewish families in the U.S. for various Shas institutions, and most of these donations are expected to stop - at least for now. 

Another person arrested in the affair is Rabbi Edmund Nahum, who is considered very close to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef himself. Nahum was also involved in raising funds for the Yosef family institutions. 

The Israel Police and the Justice Ministry's Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority will soon start investigating the Shas and other Sephardic institutions' yeshivas implicated in the scandal. The investigation may also include the banks suspected of transferring the allegedly tainted funds.

Ynet's report:

Report: Aryeh Deri sought funds from community involved in money laundering
Deri apparently following in footsteps of Rabbi David Yosef, who left US just hours before community was raided and his associate arrested by FBI
Yaniv Halily • Ynet

Sources from the Syrian-Jewish community in New York say Aryeh Deri visited them in May in order to request donations for a new political party, which he defined as a "social, haredi-secular party whose members are key Israeli personalities".

The American Syrian-Jewish community has donated funds in the past to a number of haredi institutions, especially those owned by Shas and the family of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the party's spiritual leader.

Yosef's son, Rabbi David Yosef, visited the community a number of times a year as the guest of Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Haim, who is currently one of the main suspects in a money laundering case involving ultra-Orthodox communities in New Jersey and New York.

David Yosef's family members say he departed from the US just hours before the FBI swept into the community to arrest 44 [sic] of its members, who are suspected of involvement in the case. "(He was) very lucky," said a member of the family who resides in Brooklyn.

Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Haim is considered a close associated of Rabbi David Yosef, and the two have been regarded as close since their days in the yeshiva.  
 
Aryeh Deri could not be reached for comment.

In Israel the money laundering case has taken its effect and members of the ultra-Orthodox community have begun to seek legal counsel over the activities of various haredi organizations and institutions, in order to verify their observance of the law.

Comments

[Yochanan Lavie]

It's a shame Yosef got into politics.

[Michael Makovi]

I'm mourning that Ashkenazic Judaism was transformed beyond recognition by the Holocaust (Professor Menachem Friedman says he questions the Ashkenazi Eastern-European character of Haredi Judaism; and cf. Professor Haym Soloveitchik's "Rupture and Reconstruction" and Rabbi Yom Tov Schwarz's Eyes to See); that German Neo-Orthodoxy and Turkish/Balkan Judeo-Spanish Sephardism were both destroyed totally; and that Mizrahi Judaism has Ashkenazified/Haredized.

Save in the halls of YCT and the like, and in the minds of Orthodox professors of Judaic studies, there are barely any expositors of authentic traditional Judaism anymore.

I don't understand - how can a person steal for the sake of a yeshiva? It makes no sense. Rabbi Schwarz (op. cit.) tells a story of a elementary yeshiva that, in order to increase its government lunch-meal stipends, hosted another elementary yeshiva's students during lunchtime on the day the government inspector came, in order to appear as if they were feeding more students than they really were. Rabbi Schwarz is appalled, but I doubt many Orthodox rabbis today would be.

[A. Nuran]

Wait, this is the same cork-soaker who told IDF soldiers to go to jail rather than hear women singing in shul?

[Reader]

"Community involved in money laundering"?
Excuse me?
A few Italians were arrested too, so now the New York Italian COMMUNITY is involved in bribery and money laundering?
BTW, can someone explain where the money to be laundered came from? Usually the money in need of "laundering" comes from illegal gains (such as drug trading, etc.) that cannot be simply deposited straight into a bank. So what were those illegal gains, specifically, other than those coming from the FBI's agent-provocateur?
Moreover, no one has been convicted yet. The FBI clearly targeted religious Jews, and while some of them may be convicted for the crimes, the intended result is to smear the Jews and Israel (by association) with as broad brush as possible). Anti-Semites are weeping with joy at all the publicity.

[Reader]

Of course, they are linked to R. Ovadia Yosef. They are Sephardic. He is Sephardic. They write and visit. If anyone ever was in the vicinity of a criminal he must be a criminal too?
This reminds me of the argument that cucumbers are deadly because everyone who ate cucumbers eventually died. Same ironclad logic.

[Ben]

Shas would be Ok, they'll just require more child stipends and scam Israeli taxpayer more thoroughly.

[alternative childcare]

A. Nuran: No. This is the guy who single handedly created the possibility for skin grafts for wounded soldiers after the 73 war, after all the other rabbis in Israel and abroad blocked it. Any other clever questions?

[PishPosh]

A Churban put elevated these guys into power and it will take another Churban to put them out.
To bad that the 2 Jews 3 opinions joke does not also translate to "You have 1 Jewish criminal protected by the Rabbis and thousands of Jews protesting against these Rabbis."

[Shmarya]

Of course, they are linked to R. Ovadia Yosef. They are Sephardic. He is Sephardic. They write and visit. If anyone ever was in the vicinity of a criminal he must be a criminal too?
This reminds me of the argument that cucumbers are deadly because everyone who ate cucumbers eventually died. Same ironclad logic.

Not exactly. Shas charities were allegedly used to launder the money. And Ynet notes:

David Yosef's family members say he departed from the US just hours before the FBI swept into the community to arrest 44 [sic] of its members, who are suspected of involvement in the case. "(He was) very lucky," said a member of the family who resides in Brooklyn.

[Shmarya]

"Community involved in money laundering"?
Excuse me?
A few Italians were arrested too, so now the New York Italian COMMUNITY is involved in bribery and money laundering?

The Italians arrested hold no leadership positions in the Italian community and are not religious leaders.

The Syrian Jews arrested are both religious leaders and holders of positions of authority in their community.

So the scrutiny of the Syrian (and, by extension, haredi) Jewish community will be greater – especially because community nonprofits were allegedly used to launder money, as were Shas-controlled Israeli nonprofits.

[Reader]

"The Syrian Jews arrested are both religious leaders and holders of positions of authority in their community."
Still, this is no reason to state that the community is involved in money laundering.
It's like saying that all Catholics are involved in the crimes committed by their religious leadership (and you don't have to go far to find the most egregious examples).

[MalachHamovies]

Everyone please keep in mind that Agudath Israel is going to be effected by all of this as well.

In the past 10-15 years many syrians have been honored by the Agudah and has given loads of money to them.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Nuran? or is it choshkhan?
in any case, you must mean mordechai elikaku lubovitz's chum.

Wait, this is the same cork-soaker who told IDF soldiers to go to jail rather than hear women singing in shul?

[Reader]

"Ovadia Yosef's Son Resisted Dwek's Illegal Temptation

Reported: 03:05 AM - Jul/27/09
Follow Israel news briefs on and .

(IsraelNN.com) Rabbi David Yosef, the son of Shas party spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef, resisted a bribe offered by state's witness Solomon Dwek in the American investigation that resulted in the arrest of 44 people on charges of bribery or money laundering last week, according to a report by News One on Sunday.

The report says that Dwek came to the younger Rabbi Yosef and offered to cash $25,000 for him in exchange for a percentage of the money, claiming he had nothing to eat and that the rabbi was obligated to save him. The rabbi was careful enough to refuse and say he did not deal in such matters. The attempted transaction was recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Dwek, a real-estate developer, religious-school head and philanthropist from Ocean Township, was charged with defrauding PNC bank out of $25 million in 2006. The FBI used him to make contact with the politicians and rabbis from New York and New Jersey last week."

[Shmarya]

To say that story as written makes no sense is an understatement.

[Alex]

Lets stay clear of blaming R. Yosef. The media is reporting that his son refused to take the bait.

[Sidney Anolik]

Why, Why, Why don,t these Idiot's see what harm they are doing to their Jewish Brethren