Orthodox Rabbis Ban Borrowing From Quicken Loans — Because It’s Run By Jews

ed note–several things worth considering–

1. Indeed, as this story makes patently clear, Jews are involved in the money-lending business, and in percentages that far exceed their representation in American society. This fact–just like its twin siblings–Jews in the media, Jews having a disproportionate controlling interest in politics, etc, is not just some ‘old canard’ or an ‘anti-Shemitic conspiracy theory’. It is a fact whose particulars are better known to the Jews themselves, including those groups such as ADL who are paid to screech whenever a Gentile makes the factual statement that Jews and money-lending go as much hand in hand as flies and manure.

2. Next, keep in mind that this halachic prohibition is rooted not in some Talmudic principle, but one emanating right from out of the Torah, otherwise known to Christianites as The Old Testament, in particular that section found in Deuteronomy 23, to wit–

‘Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess…’

Now, we are forced to point this out due to the depressingly-high number of persons out there, mostly of the Christian pedigree–who maintain with dogmatic authority the false assertion that the ‘Jooish’ problem is Talmudic in nature, (spiced with a little bit of Khazarism) but that the Hebrews, She-brews, Israelites, etc, whatever-the-H-we want to use in describing them–were pure-as-the-wind-driven-snow and that their book, the Torah (Old Testament) is the word of GAAAAWD and just as holy as are the words of Jesus Christ found in the NT.

It’s been 2,000 years fellow Gentiles, and it’s high-time for us to wake up and smell the coffee on this one. The Jooish problem predates the Talmud and the Khazars by thousands of years and those who cling desperately to their OT as much as they do their NT are trying to live in 2 mutually exclusive worlds simultaneously, or, as Jesus Himself warned, trying to serve 2 masters.

The Jewish Daily Forward

If you’re an Orthodox Jew with a mortgage from Quicken Loans, you might be in trouble.

Agudath Israel of America, a major haredi Orthodox organization, issued a Jewish legal ruling last month prohibiting Jews from taking out loans from the Detroit-based company because it is majority-owned by Jews. Quicken Loans, which claims to be America’s largest mortgage lender, also owns Rocket Mortgage, the online mortgage agency.

Jewish law, known as halacha, forbids Jews from charging interest to other Jews. So Jews are allowed to own mortgage agencies — and lend to non-Jewish customers — but they are not allowed to sell fellow Jews a 30-year fixed rate (or anything else). Likewise, if you’re a new Jewish homeowner, halacha says you are not allowed to take out a mortgage with a Jewish-owned company. The same also goes for other kinds of loans.

“Prominent leading halachic authorities have issued a [ruling] that any Jew who obtains a loan with interest from QL or any of its subsidiaries is in danger of transgressing the prohibition of Ribbis D’oraisa,” said the Agudath Israel ruling, using a Hebrew term for the biblical commandment against interest.

So what do Jews do if they want to lend each other money — say, in Israel, where most businesses are owned by Jews? There is a way out.

In the Middle Ages, rabbis devised a contract called a “heter iska,” or business permit, that technically transforms the loan into a co-investment. Instead of being a lender and a borrower, the two parties are now “business partners,” where one supplies the capital and the other uses it as they see fit.

Agudath Israel says Jews can keep using Quicken Loans — that is, if they sign a heteriska.

On Monday, Quicken responded to a query saying it was open to the idea.

“Over the next 30 days, Quicken Loans will assemble a committee to quickly and efficiently dive into the issue of ‘Heter Iska,’ and once and for all attempt to find a solution that the observant Jewish community, as well as our legal and capital markets team, finds acceptable. I am confident that this can and will be achieved,” said a statement attributed to Dan Gilbert, chairman of Rock Holdings, Quicken’s parent company. Gilbert, a Detroit native, also owns several sports franchises, including the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Agudath Israel is resolute on the issue: no heter iska, no Quicken Loans mortgage. And if you’re an Orthodox Jew with an existing Quicken Loans mortgage? Too bad. You need to dissolve it and start over.

“The rabbis of the Conference felt an obligation to let the public know… that loans can only be taken out from the company with a valid hetter iska,” Agudath Israel’s spokesman, Rabbi Avi Shafran, wrote in an email to JTA. “Existing loans should be dissolvable and re-created within a hetter iska framework to permit them.”

Rabbi Mordechai Frankel, director of the Institute of Halacha at Star-K, a kosher certification agency, said some smaller Jewish-owned banks are familiar with using the heter iska.

“There are small banks that are Jewish-owned that do have the heter iska,” he said. “If the person lives in an area with a large concentration of Orthodox people, the bank will become comfortable with the concept and become more open to it.”

Frankel doesn’t know whether Quicken would agree to the contract. But if not, he said, there are always the big banks — which are all, as far as he knows, kosher to lend money.