New Article: "Rabbi Ezra Labaton and the Destruction of the Sephardic Tradition"
David Shasha
Rabbi Ezra Labaton and the Destruction of the Sephardic Tradition
The Brooklyn-born Syrian Rabbi Ezra Labaton passed away in 2013 after many years of debilitating illness. Rabbi Labaton was the spiritual leader of Congregation Magen David of West Deal in New Jersey and a true pioneer in the establishment of Ashkenazi Modern Orthodoxy in the Syrian Sephardic community.
His students and followers created a website in tribute to his influence:
Last week a flurry of e-mails were posted by members of the Syrian community in order to help publicize the website.
In order to get a better understanding of Rabbi Labaton and his influence in the Syrian Sephardic community it is helpful to read the many tributes written by his admirers:
http://www.rabbilabaton.com/tributes/
One of the most prominent tributes came from Rabbi Marc Angel who, like Rabbi Labaton, is an aggressive proponent of Ashkenazi Modern Orthodoxy and the YU system:
http://www.jewishideas.org/blog/memoriam-rabbi-ezra-labaton
Here is a representative example of Rabbi Angel’s fierce loyalty to the Ashkenazim:
And here is evidence of his ambivalence, if not contempt, for the Sephardic tradition which was sparked by an article I submitted to his journal Conversations that he immediately rejected for publication:
It is well-known that Rabbi Labaton, like his close friend Rabbi Angel, was deeply dedicated to Yeshiva University and its legendary leader Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. After receiving his rabbinic ordination from YU Rabbi Labaton moved to Boston where he would be closer in physical proximity to his rabbi and be able to study at Brandeis University for his PhD which he finally received in 2012:
http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/nejs/doctoral/placement.html
Prior to the Haredization of the community in the 1980s, the influence of Ashkenazi Modern Orthodoxy was paramount in Brooklyn and Deal, New Jersey. Most of the Synagogues and Yeshivas in the Syrian Sephardic community followed Modern Orthodox pedagogical praxis, and over time – as had been the desire of Isaac Shalom going back to the 1950s – the Sephardic heritage was gradually dispensed with.
Figures like Rabbi Labaton adapted Sephardic Judaism to the Modern Orthodox model which was seen as superior to the classical Sephardic heritage. The Sephardim themselves were marked as loutish boors inferior to the “educated” Ashkenazi Jews. Contempt was shown to those who continued to believe that Sephardic tradition had an important role to play in the Jewish future.
Famously, Rabbi Labaton formulated this contempt for the Sephardic tradition when he casually told a group of my students back in 1997: “What have the Sephardim done since 1492?” It was this sort of dismissiveness that characterized the self-hating Syrian Jews whose loyalties were squarely in the Ashkenazi camp.
At a conference of the now-defunct Modern Orthodox group EDAH some years ago, Rabbi Labaton spoke contemptuously about the Syrian Sephardic community. Audio evidence of that lecture, mysteriously, has vanished from sight as if it was never delivered:
http://www.edah.org/upcoming_program2_new.cfm
But those who heard it will never forget the hammer that Rabbi Labaton applied to the Sephardic community; a primal clash that informed his work and life for many years. In that sense evidence from a specific lecture is not really necessary; Rabbi Labaton’s hostile feelings for the Sephardic tradition were well-known to all.
Making his home in Deal, New Jersey Rabbi Labaton played a prominent role in the Hillel Yeshiva and taught in its High School for many years:
Here is a summary of his career posted on jewishgen.org:
Rabbi Ezra Labaton, who has served as the spiritual leader of Magen David of West Deal for the past 18 years, has a lifelong commitment to helping others. As a small child, he appeared in television commercials. Rabbi Ezra attended Magen David Yeshiva, Flatbush High School and Yeshiva University where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy. He earned an MA in philosophy from Yeshiva University, where he also received his rabbinical ordination and was a student of Rabbi Joseph Soloveichick.
In 1975, while still a graduate student, Rabbi Ezra and his wife Emily Friedman went to South Africa where they conducted seminars for Jewish children. In 1976, Rabbi Ezra and his wife worked to gather critical information on behalf of Soviet Jews in Russia. Rabbi Ezra taught at the Maimonides School in Boston for seven years. Both he and Emily taught at Maimonides College of Yeshiva University. Rabbi Ezra has lectured throughout the country. Today, he continues to lead Magen David Congregation in Deal, New Jersey and teach at Hillel Yeshiva. Rabbi Ezra is now a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University in Boston.
It is critical to remember that Rabbi Labaton’s tenure at Hillel overlapped with that of Rabbi Baruch Lanner.
For those unfamiliar with the Lanner debacle and its corrosive impact on the Jewish community:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Lanner
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/01_02/2008_01_10_AwarenessCenter_CaseOf.htm
The degenerate Lanner began abusing children in 1970. He served as principal of the Hillel Yeshiva High School from 1982 until 1997 when he took a full-time position at the Modern Orthodox youth organization NCSY. In 2000 he was officially exposed as a child abuser and molester. His fall from grace was largely due to the untiring efforts of New York Jewish Week publisher Gary Rosenblatt whose seminal article “Stolen Innocence” provided gruesome details of the crimes:
http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=8916
In 2002 The Jewish Week published this article detailing the personal testimonies of the young women that Lanner abused:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/women_detail_abuse_lanner
Here is a reflective analysis on the Lanner matter written by Rosenblatt in 2013:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/gary-rosenblatt/lanner-what-ive-learned-what-i-wonder
In reviewing the Lanner material we see a number of things: Lanner was truly beloved in the Modern Orthodox world. He was seen as an exemplary leader and it was this respect that helped enable him to commit his vicious crimes.
A rabbinic review of the Lanner case led by YU Rabbi Mordechai Willig took place in 1989 and found him guilty of child abuse, but did nothing to have him removed from his positions of authority in the community:
http://forward.com/articles/9231/critics-charge-rabbinic-court-covered-up-lanner-ab/
http://forward.com/articles/9345/top-rabbi-admits-errors-in-handling-lanner-case/
The following letter written in 1991 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is a fascinating document in light of what we now know about Lanner:
http://lukeford.net/Images/photos/shlomoriskin.pdf
The letter offers Lanner a job as a student recruiter in Rabbi Riskin’s Ohr Torah institutions in Israel two years after the YU tribunal found him guilty of child abuse.
It is interesting to note the close ties between Rabbi Riskin and Rabbi Labaton:
https://www.ohrtorahstone.org/donate/Dinner2008/OTS_Officers_ExecComm_Board.pdf
Rabbi Labaton was on the Ohr Torah board of directors and invited Rabbi Riskin many times to visit the West Deal Synagogue and deliver classes and sermons during the summer months. The relationship presented a strong image to the Syrian Sephardic community of Modern Orthodox unity and a confluence of Jewish interests.
We have mentioned the idea of “Da’as Torah” on many occasions, and in the Lanner case we can see those chickens coming home to roost: Being a well-respected insider in the Modern Orthodox hierarchy permitted Lanner to continue committing his heinous violations without any negative repercussions.
And this would not be the last time YU would find itself in hot water over sexual abuse scandals:
http://forward.com/articles/188247/richard-joel-knew-about-yeshiva-sex-abuse-allegati/?p=all
It is critical to note that Lanner worked at the Hillel Yeshiva High School during the period when he was committing these violations, and yet there was no investigation by the Syrian Jewish community leadership who were paying his salary, and only silence from Rabbi Labaton. It is equally essential to realize that Lanner’s criminal conviction resulted not from his tenure at NCSY, but for his despicable crimes against the Hillel students in Deal, New Jersey.
http://jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com/2008/01/rabbi-baruch-lanners-prison-time-is.html?m=1
To this day the matter is not openly discussed in the Syrian Jewish community.
Here is the complete Lanner report published by OU in 2000:
http://frumfollies.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/ou_special_commission.pdf
The Lanner issue brings together the Ashkenazification process of Syrian Jews like Rabbi Labaton and the corrupt insider world of Modern Orthodox Judaism.
Lanner was never seen as a problem by the Modern Orthodox Syrian Jews because he was “one of us.” In spite of the many accusations from students, Lanner remained a trusted figure because he represented what was seen as the best of Modern Orthodoxy. He was never targeted because of his authority within this community.
Sadly, those not seen as “insiders” did not receive the same preferential treatment. In the Modern Orthodox Jewish world there is indeed a pecking order and Sephardim and their heritage are most decidedly not welcomed with the same enthusiasm as Lanner was. The disdain and contempt for the Sephardic tradition extends to the personal level where individual attempts to support and promote the Sephardic heritage are met with a dismissive arrogance and a refusal to accept the humanity of the Sephardic activist. It is a warning shot that has served to ensure that Sephardim do not seek to preserve their history and culture.
Institutional control means that jobs are doled out to those who follow the (Ashkenazi) party line. Taking the Sephardi side is tantamount to personal and professional suicide. Those Sephardim who do actually battle against Ashkenazi persecution in both Israel and the Diaspora have thus been viciously attacked by the Modern Orthodox self-hating Sephardim whose loyalty to Ashkenazi Zionism has overridden their concern for their own community and its interests both cultural and political.
The many glowing testimonies to Rabbi Labaton exemplify the continued faith that many Syrian Jews have in the Modern Orthodox system in spite of the damage that it has done to our community.
I have discussed the matter in some detail in my 2012 article “The Idiot Sephardim”:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/davidshasha/a93EykBERUk/rA34Yg5U6oAJ
And in the follow-up “The Stale Winds of Summer”:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/I5LcowTL5kE
In 2011 I discussed the matter of Sephardim and Modern Orthodoxy in more general terms:
The adoption of Ashkenazi Modern Orthodoxy has done two things to our community: It has sown the seeds of destruction for our Andalusian Jewish heritage which is based on the values of Religious Humanism. But it has also exposed the community to the vicious intra-Ashkenazi war between the Orthodox factions. As Modern Orthodoxy took hold of Sephardic institutions a counter-movement took place which adopted Ultra-Orthodox values akin to those of Lakewood Yeshivah:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/133643/lakewood-redefining-orthodoxy
I have often commented on the toxic views of Rabbi Eli Mansour who is perhaps the foremost Ultra-Orthodox figure in the Syrian Sephardic community and is closely associated with the Lakewood revolution.
Here are some Mansour highlights I have presented over the past few years to give you an indication of how this transformation has taken place:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/uDqd0Lw2IVQ/-sOboiZdHD8J
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/Kmi5UgxrL9I/ZakBPZDhDRYJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/hm4lS3ELjN8/pKUjyWE7bwcJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/R2KtTnodRxI/plirPUpA3pgJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/5TQuFobPc4g/DV6EgCKxE0UJ
It is interesting to see that both the Modern Orthodox Sephardim and the Ultra-Orthodox Sephardim seek to make Sephardic tradition fully compatible with the Ashkenazi system, thereby undermining and eviscerating the ethical substance and intellectual content of our classical heritage.
I have recently addressed the problem in a critical discussion of Rabbi Meir Mazuz:
The Ultra-Orthodox revolution has had serious ramifications for the Sephardic community, though it is highly ironic that the current battle is being waged without the use of the actual Sephardic heritage which presents a counter-model to the Ashkenazi factionalism and dysfunction.
And for this we can thank Rabbi Labaton and his followers.
You will not find any mention on the tribute website of Baruch Lanner or of the battle that has been successfully waged against our Sephardic heritage. Sadly, a recent paper written by a YU student under the controlling influence of Rabbi Labaton has even excoriated the historical figure of Rabbi Matloub Abadi who was perhaps the last authentic Sephardic Sage in our community:
In my essay “Stealing Torah and Slandering the Pious” I have argued that the malice of the Ashkenazified Syrians has caused a transformation of values and a falsification of our history. As was Rabbi Labaton’s wish, the Sephardic tradition has been reframed according to Ashkenazi Modern Orthodox values in a way that serves to turn Rabbi Abadi into a student of Rabbi Soloveitchik.
The net effect of the failure of Modern Orthodoxy in the Sephardic community has thus led to the destruction of our intellectual culture and ethical traditions while at the same time allowing the Ultra-Orthodox sector of the community to advance their positions and conquer more and more territory in our religious culture. The inexorable eclipse of Modern Orthodoxy has provided an important opportunity for the Haredim and they have taken great advantage of it. The Syrian Sephardic community will likely never be the same.
It is thus a double failure: moral as well as historical.
In the end we can see the odious figure of Baruch Lanner as a symbol of what has gone wrong in the Syrian Sephardic community: a respected member of the Modern Orthodox fraternity is given carte blanche to abuse our children while at the very same time our socio-cultural and literary-religious traditions are trashed. There is a certain symmetry to it and a pathetic testimony to the continued inability of Sephardim to read the writing on the wall and make the necessary adjustments to protect their heritage.
David Shasha