It Was a Very Good ArtScroll Week for the Schottenstein Family (4/30)
David Shasha
The ArtScroll Family Fraudster: David Schottenstein Convicted!
I want to thank local Orthodox radio broadcaster Zev Brenner for alerting me to the excellent story of David Schottenstein and his financial felony fraud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqBeB2w_mrQ
Here are some far more objective sources on the heimische Insider Trading conviction:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/florida-entrepreneur-sentenced-45-million-insider-trading-scheme
For those unfamiliar with the Orthodox world, the Schottenstein name has big clout in the world of Yeshivishkeit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArtScroll#Schottenstein_Edition_Talmud
Unfortunately, Schottenstein currently does not have the Zombie Orange Pig to pardon him, the way his Orthodox ally Sholom Rubashkin did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholom_Rubashkin
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/politics/kushner-rubashkin-trump-clemency/index.html
But if Trump wins in 2024 – and is not himself incarcerated – maybe Schottenstein will get a coveted Lysol Yeshivah pardon!
And though it is not directly Schottenstein-related, I just learned from a visit to Brooklyn Jewish bookstore Eichlers, that ArtScroll has just published Kisve HaRambam, a collection of Maimonides’ writings filtered through the usual Haredi lens:
https://www.artscroll.com/Books/KRAMH.html
Glancing at the book, I noticed that the commentary cited Anti-Maimonideans like Nahmanides in order to “correct” the Sephardic Humanism of the great master, in a way that exposes ArtScroll’s larger White Jewish Supremacy project, rooted in Ashkenazi Orthodox hatred for philosophy and science.
I have discussed the Maimonidean Controversy in my Huffington Post article “Killing Off Rational Judaism”:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/killing-off-rational-juda_b_498846
In the article I cite Jose Faur’s classic study “The Legal Thinking of the Tosafot”:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E7OdK3DLGsQ957hp0noPafRFDylkq0sXtI4uoZDjVg0/edit
He takes an even deeper dive into Ashkenazi magical thinking and irrational obscurantism in his seminal study “Anti-Maimonidean Demons”:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Tvb-3YXnkLRmvCjCNrc-hkpJyWv4bDNH-eRILzDkNY/edit
I also discuss the attack on Maimonides in my article on Samson Raphael Hirsch and his rejection of Jewish Humanism as “alien” to Judaism:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1osm0botpWsc_L-yS0ZvOOD-FPmIY75vb7T83BjQI9wE/edit
The ArtScroll idea in Kisve HaRambam is to maintain the illusory rabbinical authority of Maimonides, but making sure, in actual practice, to undermine his basic understandings of Judaism as maintained in the classical Sephardic heritage.
Sadly, this heritage no longer exists.
It is the net effect of White Jewish Supremacy.
And for those who may not have read it, here is the SHU special newsletter that attacks Rabbi David Sutton’s ArtScroll book Aleppo, City of Scholars:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C7oM2lxCJliAFbpL4CHqqnJK7HZAao9heo6XoBrI9n8/edit
Rabbi Sutton also has a new ArtScroll title which reflects his passion for the Sephardic heritage:
https://www.artscroll.com/Books/9781422633014.html
It is part of his ongoing series devoted to Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik of Brisk:
https://www.artscroll.com/Books/9781422627211.html
ArtScroll is indeed his MISHPOCHEH!
https://www.artscroll.com/Authors/Rabbi_David_Sutton.html
Which explains the Moroccan Yiddishkeyt of his Shaare Torah employee Rabbi Armo Kuessous:
https://groups.google.com/g/davidshasha/c/n4hYeSBDtV4/m/j5BEG9cYAQAJ
And that is where the Sephardim are at today.
Courtesy of Rabbi Nosson Scherman (Sutton’s father-in-law) and ArtScroll, whose signature Talmud was underwritten by the Schottenstein family.
In the end, the apple never falls far from the proverbial tree, and the David Schottenstein conviction is par for the course when it comes to the ongoing corruption of the Orthodox Jewish community, a community mired in PILPUL and magical thinking.
David Shasha