Those of us who knew, or thought we knew, Rabbi Barry Freundel — recently arrested for spying on women in the mikveh, with a mountain of evidence suggesting his guilt — are still in shock. As much as I disagreed with many of his halachic positions, I always thought he was one of the good rabbis, the ethical ones.
The same is true for those who knew Rabbi Barry Starr of Sharon, Massachusetts, who allegedly used his “rabbi’s discretionary fund” to pay off an extortionist who threatened to expose an affair he had with a 16-year-old boy. That brings new irony to the word “discretion.”
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