The young rabbis saw a madrich – an older student appointed as a guide or counselor for the younger, just
out of high school Americans, Canadians and other Westerners who were
on the one year program – throwing unopened and mail sent to
some of those students by their families into the garbage – unread and undelivered.
Rabbi Aharon Bina
I keep hearing credible horror stories about Rabbi Aharon Bina, the former Yeshivat HaKotel rosh yeshiva who now heads Netiv Aryeh. What follows is one of them:
Thirty years ago, a young rabbi was studying in Yeshivat Hakotel’s kollel. He heard Rabbi Aharon Bina say inappropriate things to American students in the one year program affiliated with Yeshiva University, but didn’t know what to do about it. Bina was the head of the program and a rosh yeshiva, and there was no procedure in place to report something like this.
Then he and another young rabbi saw a madrich – an older student appointed as a guide or counselor for the younger, just out of high school Americans, Canadians and other Westerners who were on the one year program – throwing the unopened and unread mail sent to some of those students by their families into the garbage. The young rabbi asked the madrich why he was throwing away the personal mail of these students.
The madrich told him that Rabbi Bina had decided that certain Western students should have their mail thrown unread and undelivered into the garbage because the parents of those students were a “bad influence” on them.
The two young rabbis allegedly wrote a letter to Yeshivat HaKotel’s administrator informing him of what they saw and arguing that Bina was unfit to work in education.
But Yeshivat HaKotel did nothing to stop Bina, even though it had two credible witnesses against him.
It did, however, allow Bina to retaliate against one of the young rabbis.
Bina is still teaching – now at his own Yeshiva affiliated with YU, Netiv Aryeh – and is still racking up multiple, credible complaints of emotional and physical abuse of students.
Related Post: Modern Orthodox Yeshiva Head Allegedly Emotionally And Physically Abuses Students.