Another View On Yossi Shereshevsky

A rabbi writes:

Levi, Not sure how you get the best scoops on these stories (Mordechai Gafni, Isaac Hersh), but your info seems the most complete.

Regarding "Sherry", what we called Yossi as a teenager, here’s the other side of the story that I got from him: He claims that his wife wouldn’t accept the Get, held out for money, and regularly defamed him – including the charge that he was claiming to have had "married off" his under-age daughter – to cover her own perfidy. He says that he was outside the Orthodox "fold" for a couple of years. When he "returned", he married a sweet Orthodox woman (that’s MY assessment after spending a Shabbat with them), moved to a smaller Orthodox community on the East Coast, where he successfully buys, develops and manages real estate. He’s also been involved in building up that community, including helping bring in a kollel (also based on personal knowledge).

I found his story to be very credible, I saw no tell-tale signs of lying, found no contradictions. (The fact that, as the article you reprinted mentioned, "Yossi Sharashefsky…did not have his act validated by a religious court, as Israel Goldstein did", would also seem to indicate that he either never claimed to have married off his daughter, or only claimed it privately to his ex-wife and/or her family to cause them pain during the bitter divorce.)

Either way, he seems to have straightened his life out – he would say because he was always innocent, others might view this as a "whitewash" – and it would seem unfair to spin this as a story of "a rogue helping other rogues," barring other information that establishes a pattern of roguish behavior for Yossi that extends to this decade.

I believe he gave her the get (divorce) very soon after those rumors came out, & the rumors quieted down. At least 10 years ago.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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