Rabbi Moshe Yazdi of Givat Ze’ev preached to his followers that he had special powers and could ‘heal their impurities’ by sexually and financially exploiting them.
ed note–inevitably, there will be this rush to ‘explain’ away this rabbi’s behavior on the part of both the followers of Judah-ism and deluded Christians who believe that ‘authentic Judah-ism’ forbids such behavior and that in fact it is ‘TALMUDIC’ Judah-ism–a perversion of ‘real’ Judah-ism from ‘the bible’ that promotes such behavior.
The ugly truth of the matter however is that sexual exploitation and trafficking in womenfolk for the use of their bodies got its start within the very first book of that same bible, Genesis, where a long list of Old Testerment luminaries, including Abraham, Lott, Isaac, et al did exactly what this rebbe is accused of doing, and so in that sense, he is merely continuing a long-established tradition that goes all the way back to the beginning of the affair with Abraham telling Egypt’s Pharaoh in what would later evolve into Henny Youngman’s comedy schtick ‘Take my wife, please’.
jpost
Rabbi Moshe Yazdi, 59, was indicted on Monday for seven counts of rape and fraud of women in his community in Givat Ze’ev, the State Attorney’s Office announced. Yazdi was first arrested on April 27.
Yazdi deceived his followers into believing that he had special powers and was able to ‘purify’ women by ‘descending into their impurity,’ and led them to believe that he was acting according to Jewish law.
He also convinced them to give him thousands of shekels based on fraudulent claims, taking advantage of his authority, the indictment reads.
Yazdi was the head of the ‘Amudei Hashalom’ (‘Pillars of Peace’) community and nonprofit since the 1990s, which included a soup kitchen, food deliveries to people in need and daily Torah classes.
Yazdi developed a concept called ‘canceling the mind,’ in which he preached total obedience to ‘da’at Torah’ — the opinion of the Torah.
He described himself as a ‘truly righteous person’ and one of the mythical 36 hidden ‘tzadikim’ who was able to communicate with the holy spirit and with deceased rabbis. He led his followers to submit to his will even if it seemed immoral or not a violation of halakha.
He then sexually exploited seven women and told each of them separately that they were special and had a ‘special soul.’ He also directed them to transfer money to a number of different bank accounts in order to attempt to evade tax authorities.
Yazdi was indicted on a long list of offenses, including fraudulent rape, fraudulent sodomy, fraud under aggravated circumstances, money laundering, tax evasion and more.