Rabbi Dovid Weinberger was forced to resign from his synagogue and sign a formal agreement never to be a synagogue rabbi again and never to be involved in education again. You might think that would be enough reason for America's largest haredi publishing house, Artscroll, to remove Weinberger's books from the market. But you'd be wrong.
Above: Rabbi Dovid Weinberger
The allegations made against Weinberger allegedly involve women, pastoral counselling and what in the secular world is called clergy abuse.
A reader writes:
ArtScroll is still selling Rabbi Dovid Weinberger's books.
By continuing to sell his books, ArtScroll is giving credibility to Weinberger's stature of being a "Rabbi" and he can use this to again to take advantage of uninformed, naïve, or downtrodden women who to whom he offers "council" as a rabbi.
They are also, in effect, giving him a continuous platform to be involved in chinuch as sefarim are venues of chinuch.
The ethical thing for ArtScroll to do is to stop selling books on which Weinberger's name is displayed as compiler, editor or author. Penn State, a secular institution, took down their statue of Paterno after the Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, and yet ArtScroll, purporting to represent the higher ethics and morals of the Torah, does not take down sale of their sefarim and books which prominently display "Rabbi" Dovid Weinberger's name upon them as author, editor, or compiler of those works. A shanda.
Artscroll shows 21 books with Weinberger's name on them. Here's a screenshot of the first two, followed by a PDF of the entire 21-book listing. Please click to enlarge:
PDF: Download ArtScroll Rabbi Dovid Weinberger accessed 8-25-2014 (right click to open the PDF in a new browser window or tab)
Weinberger's resignation letter-promise dated December 2013. Please click to enlarge:
Related Post:
Rabbi Dovid Weinberger's Signed Promise Not To Work As A Community Rabbi Or Teach Ever Again.