Jun 7, 2016
You donate, they see salvation
"Vaad Harabbonim l'inyanei tzedaka" is one of the most important, and one of the largest, tzedaka organizations in the Haredi community.
They are in serious trouble, and they did it to themselves.
After an audit by the registrar of organizations, a department in the Justice Ministry, they are losing their status of "chapter 46" and might have to disband completely.
The audit found many many financial irregularities, including money laundering, money collected in campaigns for specific distributions that were then not distributed (at least not for the purpose for which they were collected), money taken by board members, money distributed with no authorization to relatives of board members, illegal salaries taken by board members, "loans" taken by board members with no paperwork and no records of repayment, and the list goes on and on with thousands of examples of problems in the books.
See Kikar's article about the report for some of the details.
Some might say this is all fabricated and they are clearly anti-haredi. I just say be as careful as you can when you give your money to tzedaka. Obviously we cannot possibly know any such thing about any organization, but don't just give because of a slick marketing campaign. Give to organizations you are personally familiar with, give to people you are personally familiar with or causes that you have a connection to. Don't just give to an organization because they put out a glossy pamphlet with pictures, stories of salvation, and promises of blessings.
To paraphrase their catch-line, with the Vaad Harabbonim, you donate, and they see the salvation.
They are in serious trouble, and they did it to themselves.
After an audit by the registrar of organizations, a department in the Justice Ministry, they are losing their status of "chapter 46" and might have to disband completely.
The audit found many many financial irregularities, including money laundering, money collected in campaigns for specific distributions that were then not distributed (at least not for the purpose for which they were collected), money taken by board members, money distributed with no authorization to relatives of board members, illegal salaries taken by board members, "loans" taken by board members with no paperwork and no records of repayment, and the list goes on and on with thousands of examples of problems in the books.
See Kikar's article about the report for some of the details.
Some might say this is all fabricated and they are clearly anti-haredi. I just say be as careful as you can when you give your money to tzedaka. Obviously we cannot possibly know any such thing about any organization, but don't just give because of a slick marketing campaign. Give to organizations you are personally familiar with, give to people you are personally familiar with or causes that you have a connection to. Don't just give to an organization because they put out a glossy pamphlet with pictures, stories of salvation, and promises of blessings.
To paraphrase their catch-line, with the Vaad Harabbonim, you donate, and they see the salvation.
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Thanks for bringing this up.
ReplyDeleteWhat was that silly Gemara about teaching your son a trade, lest one "teach" him to be a thief...
ReplyDeleteif you allow your puicture to be associated with this "tzedakah", you are obligated to only allow it to be used for proper purposes.
ReplyDeletethe "gedolim" have to issue a public statement either denying (and follow up with a detailed public accounting / accountant report every five calendar days posted on the web, whether they hate web or not) or closing the organization fortwith, and / or immediate replacement of the "gabbaim" / principals.
the gedolim will probably just say to continue giving to vaad harabbonim and they do good work (they probably do, beyond what they "steal").
Deletethe gabbaim or some askan will probably make some statement about how they are being hounded and it is an anti-haredi witch-hunt and the accusations are not true. eventually, under threat of closure, they will probably come to some sort of a deal to replace the board, get some sort of supervision for a period of time and eventually get back their seif 46 status
I'm really aiming my comments at the pictures of (approved) 'gedolim' who are pictured (i'll assume not photoshopped) giving to this (and other) tzedakot.
DeleteYour comment is valid (not correct, but valid) in non money cases. But here, people will not want to give to alternate tzadot which use the same strategy. Especially the big money people who aren't stupid, and won't go for such meaningless platitudes.
Thus, its in their interest to differentiate, by instituding proper controls.
And the 'gedolim' have their own vested interest in not uring such smoke and mirrors.
(Yeah, there are extremists who thinktheir followers will nevertheless follow, and some extremists who will gnevertheless give. But even they know they can't rely on them.)
I believe that there is a new vaad already. See the rest of the kikar and the bechadrei article about it
ReplyDeleteI suspect that a lot of this is overblown and simply not true. I can tell you that in general, when the rasham hires these accountants to do an audit, much of what they write has no basis in reality.
ReplyDeleteI took a look at the kikar piece and at the pages extracted from the rasham's report. If you look at the first one, under 1.10, they discuss the account in the USA. They claim that the amuta has an account in the US and didn't report it. They then go on to say "the account is in the name of the amuta but doesn't include the A"R (i.e. amuta reshuma, which the rasham insists having on every document) nor does it include the amuta number. The name recorded on the check "Vaad harabbanim l'inyanei tzeduka Inc."
Get it? It's clearly not owned by the israeli amuta, but rather by a US not-for-profit - so why should the Israeli amuta put those activities in its books?
I had the same situation with a client here in Tel Aviv (not haredi), and I know that all is kosher. But the rasham claims the same thing. It's ridiculous.
To be clear, I am not stating that all the allegations are baseless - nor am I in a position to do so. Only that the rasham is very gifted in making mountains out of molehills.