This happens to me all the time. My enemies send me enticing young women who try to lure me into all sorts of compromising positions but my religious faith makes me impervious to all challenges.
I am all too keenly aware that one compromising photo and my career as a moral leader will be over.
Unfortunately, not all are as strong as me.
Here’s the story from Haaretz. I don’t have the time to translate it in full for you. In essence, and oh how it makes me sad to see Jews doing these naughty things to one another, a bloke by the name of Yisrael Rand tried to destroy the greatest cantor of our time (a great guy) by sending a girl pretending to be a student with questions and then taking lots of compromising pictures.
Normally I wouldn’t publish such a sexually charged article on my staid and pristine web site, but I’ve been hitting the maneshevitz this afternoon and saying what the hell, it’s only a blog post.
Cantor Israel Rand is suspected of sending a woman to entrap the cantor of Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue, Naftali Hershtik, in an attempt to have him removed from his job.
According to the suspicions, Rand recruited the young woman and recorded an intimate meeting between her and the married Hershtik in a Tel Aviv hotel room. Rand then sent pictures of the two along with an anonymous letter demanding Hershtik be fired.
A Channel 10 news report by Baruch Kra on Tuesday revealed the text of the letter sent by Rand, the cantor of the main synagogue of Ramat Gan, and the owner of a cantorial school that competes with a similar one run by Hershtik.
It has been brought to our attention the matter of an affair between the cantor of the Great Synagogue, Naftali Hershtik, and a young woman," the letter said. "We have also received pictures and recordings where Cantor Hershtik is heard and seen … If the situation of nothing being done and no clear steps taken in the matter continues, we will no longer be able to continue our silence, and will certainly keep away from the synagogue. It is unthinkable that a cantor who commits such acts can serve as a the representative of the public."
The letter was addressed to the vice-president of the Great Synagogue, Zeli Yafe. As a result of the letter, it was decided that Hershtik could no longer serve as cantor, and a letter to that effect was sent to him in February.
Yafe told the reporter that it was decided to keep the matter totally secret to protect the honor of both the synagogue and Hershtik.
Hershtik’s daughter, Hannah Zikel, called the sending of the young woman to entice her father and the distribution of the pictures a "disgusting plot."
At the same time the synagogue’s senior officials were examining the matter, the police’s international crimes unit opened an investigation and discovered Rand’s part in the affair. He told investigators how he hired the woman, who pretended to be a musicology student. She arranged to meet Hershtik in the hotel room, which had been outfitted with cameras.
