By Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
The scandal over Ashkenazi ex-Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, suspected of taking bribes and high-scale financial fraud, continues in Israel. The police have charged former and incumbent rabbis in Israel in the past, but rabbi Yona Metzger is the first to be detained (though he was released after a week and put under home arrest), despite having a high-ranking position.
It is noteworthy that viewing the chief rabbi of Israel as the highest-ranking spiritual authority of Judaism is very inaccurate. The post is neither comparable with the Pope, Patriarch of all-Russia, or Russia's Supreme Mufti. There is no religious leader in Judaism at all (except God himself, of course) but there are authoritative rabbis, experts of Tora and Halakah (religious legislature), whose opinion is trustworthy for many followers. However, the first rabbis, with few exceptions, have never been part of those authoritative rabbis. On the contrary, they have always been treated with disdain because they were always promoted to the position by groups with political interests or obvious religious moneymakers.
Rabbi Yona Metzger is one of them. Large religious authorities have never taken him seriously. Scandals around bribes and illegal income have always followed Metzger, even when he was the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, the most secular and Godless city of Israel. After being appointed the Chief Rabbi, Metzger was suspected of sexually harassing men, including a young French journalist he invited to his room during one of the conferences for interreligious dialogue. Harassment was not proven that time.
The list of crimes this ‘minister of religion’ is suspected of is quite long: violation of public trust, reception of bribes, fraud, money-laundering, tax evasion.
It is not that rabbi Metzger and his family were having a vacation in the most expensive hotels, paying nothing for the services because the administration decided not to charge the respectable guest. It is not that Metzger was taking tens of thousands of shekels for weddings. This is illegal too and can be categorized as abuse of power. But if families want Metzger himself to wed couples and pay money for that, it is their personal choice.
Yet, the ex-Chief Rabbi had other sources of income that cannot be called legal. First of all, according to the police, Metzger demanded bribes to settle cases of notable Jewish businessmen living in other parts of the world. The rabbi made urgent conversions to Judaism for a bride of the son of an oligarch, made approvals of kosher status of products imported from abroad or sent letters from the Chief Rabbinate with ‘blessings’ of some businessman’s structure. Metzger had no shame in naming a price and preferred to get money in cash.
When the rabbi felt that his interlocutor wanted help, had full confidence that there will be nothing illegal and no bribes offered, Metzger hinted that he will certainly react to the request but the rich Jew should do something in return to thank the God. For example, by donating money to a charity organization.
Then he would name the ‘most worthy’ organizations for such donations: Beit Hatavshil and Tzedakah Umishpat. Metzger himself had a deal with the heads of the organizations that they will give him 50% of donation sums in cash.
Finally, rabbi Yona Metzger, as many other Israeli rabbis and politicians, took part in campaigns to collect donations for public organizations and demanded 50% of the sums. It is again worth noting that all Jewish professional collectors of donations use this scheme: they demand 50% of donations heads of public organizations collect with their help or with the help of their contacts.
All the accumulated sums totaled millions of shekels and dollars. No doubt, the rabbi needed to ‘launder’ the money so that neither the police nor the tax administration would see anything. The method to do that was very simple: Metzger spent part of the sum to buy apartments for his children or closest relatives, the other part was allocated to accounts of the latter.
Suspicions of rabbi Metzger’s financial uncleanness appeared five years ago but all these years the police could not find enough evidence to initiate questioning of the Chief Rabbi by the government’s legal advisor. At long last, proof was found a few months ago and legal advisor Weinstein ordered detention of Metzger in June. Metzger was questioned, put under home arrest and finally released afterwards.
What happened in the five months to make the police demand another arrest for the Ashkenazi ex-Chief Rabbi and demand extension of arrest?
Rabbi Metzger, whom journalists managed to exchange a couple of words with at the court, said that he had the same question too. “They came to me at 7.00 am, cuffed me, searched through my house, brought me in for questioning but they did not ask me a single question they had not asked before for 15 hours. But I had said everything!”
It was soon announced that a lot had happened. For the past 20 years, rabbi Metzger had an assistant for some delicate matters. Metzger took the 18-year-old man of no talents in studying Tora and no education. The young man, being a close assistant of Metzger, became one of the most notable and influential figures of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. One of his duties was to receive the cash for his boss.
As it appeared, it was done with a long-term goal. Back at the questioning in June, Metzger admitted that he was collecting donations for organizations but he said that he had not taken a single shekel for his own pocket. If any money was indeed taken, questions should be addressed to his secretary. Moreover, records of Metzger’s telephone calls say that the honorable rabbi tried to persuade his assistant to take responsibility for the violations. In exchange, the rabbi would hire the best lawyers who would bring the process down to a pre-trial deal and probation. This proposal was an attempt to hinder the investigation process.
And this is where rabbi Metzger made a mistake: the assistant did not want to be a scapegoat and agreed… to be a witness and testify against his boss and benefactor. The head of a charity organization decided to take the same role, making it two witnesses.
Nonetheless, investigators decided not to rely on their testimonies and records of their conversations and sent a police officer to rabbi Metzger willing to settle a delicate case. And Yona Metzger, knowing that he was a suspect, could not resist the temptation and… named the sum of bribe he wanted for the service. The undercover police officer’s record of conversation joined the evidence list of the case.
The police say that $40,000 in cash was found in ‘sacred books’ at Yona Metzger’s house. His sister had 150,000 more shekels. His personal account had 200,000 shekels and $10,000. Lawyers were in a hurry to tell that rabbi Metzger’s money was inherited. Besides, they are small sums that many medium-class Israeli families may have. Where are the millions the police are talking about?!” adds his lawyer David Libai.
The law enforcers note that the court will get the most detailed answer to this question. Apparently, we only see the tip of the iceberg. The bigger part of the rabbi Metzger’s case remains a secret. But when judge Haima Mizrahi of the Rishon LeZion Court was shown the materials, he lost all doubts about whether to extend arrest of the Chief Rabbi or not.
The police hint that rabbi Metzger should also be charged with damage to one of the state symbols, the position of the Chief Rabbi.
