Because the previous rabbi, Philip Rabinowitz, was stabbed and bludgeoned to death. More than 30 years later, the crime is still unsolved. There’s a $25,000 reward for information leading to a criminal conviction.
Chaim: “In the 80s, DC was very very violent, and it spilled out to all the region. But since then an influx of white twinx asians and similar has done much to help pacify the place. Read up on this. Nothing stolen. And he was not the sort of man to let strangers into his home. Sounds like it was someone he knew and that it was personal.”
The Forward reports this past week: “In his 26-year tenure at the synagogue, Freundel was praised often as an intellectual rabbi, a scholar of Jewish law and an expert on Jewish ethics. Freundel was the brain, all agreed, but not necessarily the heart. Some described him as aloof and lacking warmth, qualities that may have made the community’s break with him easier.
That contrasted with Freundel’s predecessor, Rabbi Philip Rabinowitz, whom Freundel succeeded in 1987. During his 34 years as the congregation’s spiritual leader, Rabinowitz brought to Kesher more of an Old World Eastern European pastoral style that focused on building the community and he excelled in human relations. His tragic and unsolved murder left the Modern Orthodox community shocked, and led the way to Freundel’s era at Kesher’s helm.”
Daniel: “If the previous rabbi had had a spycam in his house, the crime might have been solved.”
After R. Rabinowitz was murdered, Rod Glogower served for a few years and then Barry Freundel.
