The scandal-plagued Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, the New York City-area’s Jewish community’s scandal-plagued anti-poverty arm, is losing its new CEO – likely due to conflicts with organization’s board and with local Jewish Community Councils, which are largely haredi or Orthodox controlled.
New CEO Of Scandal-Plagued Jewish Community Anti-Poverty Arm ‘Resigns’
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The scandal-plagued Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, the New York City-area’s Jewish community’s scandal-plagued anti-poverty arm, is losing its new CEO – likely due to conflicts with organization’s board and with local Jewish Community Councils, which are largely haredi or Orthodox controlled.
David Frankel was brought in last August to replace William E. Rapfogel, the former Met Council CEO who has since pleaded guilty to embezzling millions of dollars from the Met Council.
Frankel, a former commissioner of the New York City’s Department of Finance, had conflicts with organization’s board and with the heads of local Jewish Community Councils, the Forward reported.
Orthodox and haredi Jews disproportionately control those councils and have what some consider to be undue influence with the Met Council’s board – which itself provided lax oversight during Rapfogel’s 20 years of stealing.
The Met Council’s CEO before Rapfogel, haredi Rabbi David Cohen, also was a part of that theft, both as CEO before Rapfogel was hired and then afterward when he served as a paid “consultant” to the Met Council. The organization’s longtime CFO Herbert Friedman also was part of the scheme for many years.
At least $9 million went missing, but for two decades the board noticed nothing amiss and was later chastised by regulators for poor practices.
“David Frankel has done extraordinary things for Met Council over the past year — including envisioning a reorganization strategy to sustain our core services for years to come. David has told us that he is happy to lead us in implementing that strategy, and that once it is complete he would prefer to move on to another challenge,” a Met Council spokesperson told the Forward when asked about Frankel’s departure.
Frankel will reportedly leave the Met Council in either September or December – but the Met Council reportedly did not confirm either date when asked.
Rapfogel is serving a 3 1/3 to 10-year prison sentence. Rabbi David Cohen, the former CEO and consultant, has yet to be sentenced. Herb Friedman, the elderly former CFO, was sentenced to hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution and four months in jail.
Rapfogel was (and many say still is) a pillar of the Lower East Side Modern Orthodox community.
Cohen is a haredi rabbi and former CEO of Hatzolah.
The money was stolen through an insurance kickback scheme in conjunction with the Met Council’s Breslov hasidic insurance broker, Joseph “Yossi” Ross.
Frankel, Rapfogel’s replacement who is now leaving the Met Council, is not Orthodox.
He was likely hired specifically because his name value and affiliations would free up government funds frozen after the thefts became public. But now that those funds have been released and some time has passed, it is likely the Met Council no longer needs to keep him. And therefore any disputes he may have had with constituent agencies like the JCCs or with board likely would have been enough to force him out, some observers believe.