Sinas Chinam XI – One-way Correspondence – Emails 3 and 4: Mesira, Extradition, and Justice

We are back to comparing notes with Zvi Gluck, director of Amudim, for his remarks on March 8, 2026. As I have mentioned, he does not look to be on the same page as I am and as is the Torah perspective that I present as the integral mission of One Above and Seven Below (Achas L’Maala V’Sheva L’Matta). I am attempting to clarify which of us is the misguided one.

In the previous two posts we were first seeking clarity about the significance of false allegations and then on his lack of presumption of innocence. After sending him two emails for this purpose, we received clarity on neither.

In this post, I want to cover the next two emails. In them, I wanted to get some clarity on his perspective of mesira, his stand on extradition from Eretz Yisrael, and the Jewish definition of "Justice".

The 3rd Email - Mesira

Reb Zvi Gluck, in his “educational” talk on March 8, 2026, makes a very bold statement (19:00):

The number one tool used to silence victims is the Torah

He may be correct. After all, for frum Jews, the number one tool to guide us in any task is supposed to the Torah. This should be seen as a great compliment. Alas, it doesn’t look like he meant it as a compliment. I inferred this from his inciteful choice of words, “to silence victims”. He is of the opinion that victims are not to be “silenced”. So, with his statement, he is making an indictment on using the Torah as a tool.

He could have been a lot more honest. He could have used more respectful and earnest terminology. He could have said, “The number one tool used to restrain victims from doing things that will cause more harm than good and doing things that they may later regret doing is the Torah”. But he chose otherwise for the sake of self-righteously making a spurious and callous indictment against people who are really yarei Shamayim and know what the Torah really says.

Where I come from, we call such spurious indictments motzi shem rah.

Of course, he is correct that the Torah is a tool and any tool can be misused. One needs to know how to use it and, in extreme cases, even, challila, read the instructions. Yes, indeed, the Torah is sometimes misused but, in my opinion, it is not misused nearly as much as he is implying nor as much as he is misusing it.

It goes the other direction. The purpose of the Torah is to protect people from being wrongly persecuted. There is no pirush of לא תעמוד על דם רעיך that is presented as a hetter to harm anybody, unless it is the ONLY way to save somebody. There is no place in the Torah where we can do anything that hurts another person whether financially, socially, or physically, without a din Torah and a psak din that allows it. 

One thing I have witnessed repeatedly, is that this preposterous, open-ended, bogus, hetter to ignore the Torah, which Zvi Gluck not only advocates but also justifies by misrepresenting the words of Gedolim, is the number one “tool” used to create, support, and perpetuate false accusations and all the needless irreversible damage that they cause.

The Torah is our guide and we need to follow it faithfully. But, first, we need to know what it says. It seems that the 181 signatories of the celebrated Kol Koreh, including Rabbi Daniel Coren, missed a few sedarim in Yeshiva. To fill in the gaps, I wrote my post about Blood Labels almost exactly 11 years ago.

I also wrote for the public a 2-part post titled A Concise Guide to the Laws of Mesira (see Part 1 and Part 2). This was in 2017. Part 1 were several prerequisites before being able to permit to “lawful” mesira and it was called The 3 "P"s. Part 2 were mandatory conditions of actually carrying out this “lawful” mesira and it was called The 3 "C"s. I believe a brief review of The 3 "P"s will be very helpful at this time.

The 3 "P"s are three steps to implement so as to protect a real or potential victim. Only, they must only be done one at a time and in order. The 3 "P"s are:

1. Proximity – Keeping the abuser and the victim away from each other.

2. Publicity – Alerting the public that a certain person is a threat

3. Punishment – Applying forceful means to prevent an abuser from abusing which may include legal sanctions and incarceration.

As I emphasized at the time, our goal is protecting the victim. We are not allowed to punish or take nekama. If step 1 by itself gets the job done, there is no hetter to go any steps further. In many cases, step 2 needs to be added to step 1 to protect unwary individuals from becoming victims. In these cases, we can advance to step 2 and no further. Only in extreme cases where steps 1 and 2 are clearly not sufficient, can we advance to step 3. This is all explained in detail in its place.

It is imperative that any person who voluntarily takes on the mantle of being a Child Abuse Advocate must be in sync with the 3"P"s (and 3 "C"s). This includes people such as Reb Zvi Gluck. 

All of this is expressed in the email that I sent to Zvi Gluck dated April 30, 2026. I asked him if he ever heard of the 3 Ps and 3 Cs in any type of variation. As usual, he refused to respond or to acknowledge it. 

Here is the full text of the email:

Hello Reb Zvi, LOY"T

Shalom u'bracha

Once again, it is a pleasure to see how you eagerly acknowledge and respond to my emails. I feel like I am getting special treatment.

 

To move on, you stated in your presentation (19:00):

The number one tool used to silence victims is the Torah

I hate to tell you that the number one tool used by CSA advocates to overstep their boundaries and enact unwarranted mesira and prosecution and to deny accused people of their defense mechanisms is also the Torah. 

This comes from implementing the exact same methods - misquoting Gedolim and teshuvos (such as Rav Elyashiv and Tzitz Eliezer) and modifying them for your goals.

Yep, כמים פנים אל פנים, this corrupt world is a two-way street. And there is corruption on both sides of the equation.

So, I need to know if you really have a grasp on the Halachos of rodef, lo taamod, and mesira. As such, I implore you to read these two posts and to spell out to me, what, if anything you do not agree with (and why?).

Achas L'Maala V'Sheva L'Matta: Mesira XVIII(a): A Concise Guide to the Laws of Mesira (1) - Mind Your “P”s and “C”s

Achas L'Maala V'Sheva L'Matta: Mesira XVIII(b): A Concise Guide to the Laws of Mesira (2) - Mind Your “P”s and “C”s

I maintain that if one cannot relate to the 3 Ps and 3 Cs, he is not qualified for your line of work.

It sadly looks like you have entrenched yourself into the left-wing secular-minded camp together with other secular minded Jews such as David Stav and the RCANZ  who believe that our Torah - as written with no misquotes -  is expendable, not the right path, and need not be obeyed. According to them and you, anybody who calls themselves a victim, is a verified victim, and is automatically believed, no questions asked, and anyone who is accused is automatically not to be believed and must be silenced. The "Torah" says so. 

Tell this to the fellow you grew up with. (I did not see this in the Tzitz Eliezer.)

Please tell me if I am correct or not.

Once again awaiting your prompt response.

Hatzlacha rabba v’kol tuv, sela.

Very sincerely yours, 

Yechezkel Hirshman

To Reb Zvi Gluck who claims to know something about what it says in the Torah, I have one last question:

Reb Zvi Gluck, have you once in your life opened up Choshen Mishpat 388 and studied the entire siman? Have you once in your life actually studied Sanhedrin 73a? (I don’t mean Daf Yomi, I mean learned it for real.) How about Rambam Hilchos Rotzeach 1:12,13?

It doesn’t look very likely to me.

The 4th Email – Extradition and the Jewish meaning of Justice

Zvi Gluck’s presentation on March 8, 2026 was given as a call of support to Nicole Meyer. This means to say that he fully supports Nicole’s actions and has no problems with them. 

• He has no uncertainty about the possibility of a false allegation.

• He has no doubts about her status of guilt.

• He has no qualms about being moser another Jew to non-Jewish authorities for punishment.

• And, evidently, he is also in full support of extraditing Jews outside of Eretz Yisroel.

• He also subscribes to the mistaken belief that in Judaism, punishment is what is called “justice” just like in the secular world.

עובד כל העבודה זרות.

But I will not abandon my penchant for being dan l’kaf zechus. Maybe he just wasn’t coached in the rules of extradition. Maybe he had the flu when they reached Gittin 45a and Bava Kamma 83a. After all, it comes from the same Torah that is used as “a tool to silence victims”.

So I thought I should ask him. On May 3, 2026, I sent him another email. Here it is in full:

Hello Reb Zvi, LOY”T 

Shalom u’bracha.

It looks like we are on a roll with our mutual dialog.

Let’s just move on and we’ll keep this one short. Two quick questions:

1. Here is a statement – It is strictly forbidden in Halacha to extradite a Jew out of  Eretz Yisrael to any other land under any circumstances whatsoever.

Do you agree or disagree?

If you are uncertain about this please see all the attached mareh mekomos and teshuvos.

2. Are you aware that in Judaism – which you claim to practice – the term “justice” (צדק) does not apply to any form of criminal prosecution, imprisonment or corporal punishment? It means paying compensation.

Agree or disagree?

Note – If you have trouble with this concept, please see Bava Kamma 83b and what I wrote in this post (HERE).

Once again awaiting your prompt response.

Hatzlacha rabba v’kol tuv, sela.

Very sincerely yours, 

Yechezkel Hirshman 

Please note - This correspondence and all responses and subsequent ones are not confidential. You may show them to whoever you like and I may do the same including discussing them on my blog if the need arises.

You can bet that I attached a number of mareh mekomos and teshuvos. 

Once again, no response and no acknowledgement. One cannot have dialog with these people.

The final email was the Shevet Dan email. מאסף כל המחנות. The caboose on the freight train.

We’ll check it out next, G-d willing.

 

Sinas Chinam X – One-Way Correspondence – Email 2: Presumption of Guilt

 

I opened this series about sinas chinam in early May, more than five months ago. The opening post explains the current events that triggered it. Please see it HERE. 

As noted, I was totally appalled at seeing self-proclaimed perpetual victim Nicole Meyer going on the publicity circuits (podcasts, documentaries, shul appearances, etc.) spewing to ingenuous Jews the sinas chinam and malshinus she’s been doing for years and spewing blood libels to the non-Jews.

What appalled me even more was seeing supposed Jewish influencers and “role models” like Rabbi Daniel Coren and Zvi Gluck giving her a platform to continue doing so. By doing so they are legitimizing her mesira, malshinus and sinas chinam. To make it worse, they are joining in and doing it themselves.   

This is disgraceful and totally unacceptable and I cannot condone it.

I gather that I might be coming across as self-righteous. It’s hard not to be self-righteous when one has a whole anthology of Shas and poskim supporting their position which is something that I have and Reb Zvi Gluck does not. 

Still and all, one Jewish attribute that I like to apply is to be dan l’kaf zechus. To consider the possibility that maybe I am missing something and to allow the other party to explain themselves and to substantiate their position. I would like to know what it is that Zvi Gluck and Rabbi Daniel Coren see in this episode that justifies their unmitigated presumption of guilt and public sinas chinam that I don’t see.

 

So I asked them.

As I wrote in previous posts, I wrote Zvi Gluck a series of 5 emails. Each one had a CC to Rabbi Coren. The first email was a request for clarity in the false allegation story that he related in his March 8 discourse. I discussed this in detail in my previous Sinas Chinam post.

The second email was to request clarity about his presumption of guilt regarding Mrs. Leifer who never admitted to any guilt to this day. This is boosted by his story of dealing with a false accusation “many, many years ago”. I find this to be paradoxical at best and hypocritical at worst.

The email is totally self-explanatory. Here it is in full: 

Hello Reb Zvi, LOY”T

 

Shalom u’bracha.

It was quite gratifying to see your prompt and courteous response to my previous email. I hope that all people who contact you receive the same courtesy. [Note – I was being a bit sarcastic with this. There is no sarcasm in the rest of this email. – YH]

To move on, a few questions about the Malka Leifer episode.

Whereas:

• I am sure you are aware that to this day Mrs. Leifer has not admitted to any guilt and has not confessed to anything.

• The story that you told about the false accusations and the unanswered questions to my previous email indicate that you are likewise fully aware that false accusations are a real phenomenon.

• You also claim to be a man of truth and integrity. At least this is what your friend who you knew growing up said about you, he believes you look for the truth and not for an agenda. You did not dispute this accolade.

• You are probably also aware that Mrs. Leifer was acquitted of all charges that pertain to Nicole Meyer.

• You may also be aware that throughout the entire trial, it was never proven or established that a crime actually took place. (Please see my post on the subject: Achas L'Maala V'Sheva L'Matta: The Malka Leifer Verdict - Guilty!...or not?)

 

In light of all the above:

1. How can you be certain without any doubt that Mrs. Leifer is guilty at all?

2. I assume that her case fits the profile of a typical offender and the [alleged] victims fit the profile of typical victims. Is this your entire basis? Is there anything more substantial than that?

3. Is it because of your philosophy to “believe the victims”?

4. On the [off] chance that Mrs. Leifer is not guilty, would that not make her the victim?

5. Since this has been her claim throughout, aren’t we supposed to believe the victim? (As it should apply to the friend you knew growing up.)

6. Ergo, when you told us to “believe the victim” were you not really telling us to “believe the accuser”?

Again, if all these questions are too much, I would appreciate it if you could at least just answer the first one.

Once again awaiting your prompt response.

Hatzlacha rabba v’kol tuv, sela.

Very sincerely yours,

 

Yechezkel Hirshman

 

 

Please note - This correspondence and all responses and subsequent ones are not confidential. You may show them to whoever you like and I may do the same including discussing them on my blog if the need arises.

As per the first email, I did not receive a response to this, nor any kind of acknowledgement, whether polite or impolite, whatsoever. Zvi Gluck must be a very busy person. I can’t imagine he would be intentionally avoidant. (Again, I like to be dan l’kaf zechus.)

At this point I wasn’t finished. I still had a few more questions for when he can find a spare minute to reply. There were more emails.

Stay tuned…

Sinas Chinam IX - The Fifth Horseman

 

Any longtime readers who are still with me know that I started my extensive Mesira series in 2015 as a response to the flawed Kol Koreh that was published in some Jewish periodicals. This eventually morphed into extended coverage of the Malka Leifer affair.

I capped off the Kol Koreh analysis by presenting a four-part series that I called The Four Horsemen of the Kol Koreh Apocalypse. The concept was obviously modeled from X-tian [my]theology, sorry about that, but I thought that this helped bring out the point.

The “Four Horsemen” of the Kol Koreh are four common scenarios of this kind of abuse wherein most rational people will agree that going straight to law enforcement without taking some more moderate steps at first is not a good idea.

The first two Horsemen (cases 1 and 2) were fictional scenarios. In each of these two cases, the fiction portrayed an actual identifiable abuser who presented a clear and present danger. Case 1 was the case of the Amudim video clip Shattered where the abuse is happening inside a nuclear family. Both the abuser and victim are members of the nuclear family and going straight to the police would be the surest way to destroy it.

Case 2 was a reporter posing as a young woman who claimed to be abused by her friend’s father while she was visiting. 27 Israeli Rabbanim were asked what to do by the bogus victim. 21 out of the 27 Rabbonim advised her not to go to the police since doing so will very likely be more detrimental to her than otherwise. She has a lot more to lose than she has to gain in her case.

The second two Horsemen (cases 3 and 4) were cases of abuse that allegedly really happened. However, both cases involved incidents that were far in the past and it could not even be ascertained that the offenders were still offenders. Case 3 was the Malka Leifer episode where three vengeful sisters walked into a police station in Australia to file a complaint going back 3 to 7 years against a person who left Australia years before and had no intention of coming back.

Case 4 seems to be a true story of a young man who had a phase of being abusive as a young adult but grew out of it, married, and was currently minding his own business. Once again, a vengeful person who claimed to have been a victim of this fellow during his dark period took it upon himself to get this fellow into trouble with the law for no reason other than personal vengeance.

I want to note that I have never received any counter-arguments to my position on the Four Horsemen from anybody as of writing it. Not from any readers, not from David J. Nyer who authored and published the Kol Koreh, not from any of the 200 185 183 181 Rabbonim who signed that thing, and not from Zvi Gluck. Nobody.

To be sure, there are many people who disagree with me on the Malka Leifer episode and think that these three sisters are the world’s biggest heroes, including Zvi Gluck, but nobody who claims to adhere to Shulchan Aruch and Halacha has even tried to explain why (including Zvi Gluck).

So, these are the Four Horsemen that I illustrated until now to discredit the Kol Koreh. Now, thanks to Zvi Gluck and his inspiring lecture on March 8, we now have a fifth Horseman. I am referring to the case of the false accusation that he related which I discussed in my previous Sinas Chinam post. 

The first two horsemen are fictitious scenarios of clear-cut abuse and an active abuser. The problem was that going straight to law enforcement would likely come at a price that nobody wants to pay. The second two horsemen are true scenarios about allegedly clear-cut abuse but are ancient history. This fifth horseman is a true scenario where no clear-cut abuse took place at all.

To me it’s a no brainer that going “straight” to the police (or going at all) is a recipe for disaster. But Zvi Gluck’s brain works differently. This is because he drank the Kol Koreh Kool-Aid. Also, he is probably right-handed. In any case, fear not, because he has Rav Elyashiv, ZTL, to rely on. 

But so do I.

The difference between us is exactly as I wrote in this Kol Koreh post (HERE):

if we don’t get a precise transcript of Rav Elyashiv’s exact words, we cannot be sure Rav Horowitz (in our case, Zvi Gluck) is quoting him accurately. I don’t know exactly what Rav Elyashiv said but I know what he wrote. He did not write to go straight to the police.

Here is what Rav Elyashiv wrote to Rav Shraga Feivel Cohen:

Indeed, all this about permitting one to notify the government is only in a case where the matter is clear that his (the suspect’s) hand is indeed sullied.

And HERE he wrote:

And therefore, each and every case requires the evaluations and rulings of Torah scholars who are great in Torah and fear of Heaven.

In the case that was discussed “in Zvi Gluck’s presence”, we have no idea what are the circumstances of the case, what was permitted, exactly who is expected to contact the police, and who is the one who might be lying. But each case needs to be evaluated individually. In the false accusation case that is described by Zvi Gluck in his talk, it is hard to imagine that if if it was presented to Rav Elyashiv the way Zvi described it to us, he would recommend contacting the police.

In the same way that Reb Zvi falsifies the position of Rav Elyashiv, ZTL, he likewise falsifies the position of the Tzitz Eliezer, ZTL. He falsely presents both of them as advocating to report cases to the police as a standard course of action. Neither of them say so. They say only that it is permissible when it is necessary.

At about the 24:10 mark of his appearance he falsely claims that "The Tzitz Eliezer writes explicitly that in the case of child abuse, one is obligated to go to the authorities, not muttar." 

Throughout the entire teshuva, the Tzitz Eliezer constantly uses the term muttar, not obligated, except in one place where he writes “one is obligated to save a young girl from physical and mental harm.” He didn’t say one is obligated to go to the authorities, he said one is obligated to save a person. This is not much of a chiddush. If going to authorities is the best way to do that, then you can claim it is an obligation, but where it is not, such as in all five of the “Horseman” cases that I describe, not only is there no obligation, but mark my word, it is forbidden.

The Kol Koreh faction and Zvi Gluck glance at teshuvos but do not actually read them. Consequently, they misquote them, misrepresent them, and distort them to fit their agenda. And their agenda is to mahsser every accused abuser to the police regardless of what grounds they have to do so or the potential consequences. Everything will turn out just hunky-dory. As such, to conclude his rendition about the false accusation episode, Reb Zvi remarked:

I can promise you if this case went to the police, there would have been no arrest. It would have been investigated properly and this guy's life wouldn't have been destroyed. There is a system that works. If we utilize the system, it will be beneficial to everybody.

I am not sure what he means by 'arrest'. He probably means being fully booked and detained, not just brought in and interrogated. Despite his “statistics” (less than 15% get arrested), I don’t know how he can be so confident. 

The job of the police is to catch and prosecute bad guys. It is not to judge cases. They need to validate their paychecks so they really like to come up with bad guys, even if they aren’t really so bad. Especially if business is slow. You can call it “erring on the side of caution”. They will hold innocent people indefinitely. They do not work out of conscience. רק אין יראת אלקים במקום הזה.

Zvi has a point in this specific case, being that it is especially weak. This is because the complaint is not coming from the alleged victim or a credible eye-witness and there is really no victim who is ready to press charges. So, the person would likely be released after questioning. But this in no way would make him look innocent. There is no reason to think that going this route will make the school less inclined to implement the extreme measures it implemented anyway or make his irrational wife any more rational. 

To me, based on my personal layman experience and not as a seasoned Child Abuse Advocate, all this seems quite obvious. A seasoned professional like Reb Zvi Gluck should have just as much common sense, but he isn’t showing it. Since until this point I had held Reb Zvi Gluck such high regard, I considered that maybe there is something that I am missing. Hence, I contacted Zvi Gluck directly and implored him to fill in the blanks and set me straight. 

I wrote and sent him the email that I embedded in my previous Sinas Chinam post, the first of five. It turned out that the embedded email did not display in my blog emails, so in this post, I will need to copy/paste the important parts of it. If you wish to see the entire email, you can see it embedded in the previous post on the blog site or you can access it HERE.

To open, I introduced myself and proceeded to tell him why I am writing to him. I wrote:

I have been following, researching and analyzing the Malka Leifer episode since 2016. That’s ten years, now. I have written a ton of literature about it. I studied the claims and the facts and the Halachic and social ramifications. Unlike you, I know what the Tzitz Eliezer really says and what he doesn’t. Also, what Rav Elyashiv, Rav Dovid Cohen the Chofetz Chaim and some others actually wrote.

Astonishingly, it brings us to a very different place than you are at with this. Clearly, one of us has a distorted perception of this case, either you or me...Perhaps you can teach me things that I don’t know. Or, just maybe, I can teach you things that you don’t know.

I proceeded to ask him the 15 questions that I referred to in my previous post. The ones that inquire about the role of the police were questions 6-12. These were the exact questions:

6. Do you honestly believe that reporting this to the police would have brought about a better outcome? Why?

7. Do you think any police investigator would have gone along with the accused to check out his route?

8. Are you aware that the job of police is to decide whether or not to detain the suspect, which depends on whether they can establish that a crime was committed, not whether the suspect is innocent or guilty? The police do not exonerate anybody.

9. Are you aware that the police will be forced to question the affected child? Is that a good idea? For a mere allegation?

10. Even if ultimately the charges are dropped, as you are convinced they would have been, why wouldn’t the same amount of damage or more happen in the interim regardless?

11. Why do you think that the police would be trusted by the school and community if they dropped the case [invariably due to lack of proof or a complainant]?

12. Why do you think it is muttar for an external party to call police without first confronting the accused as mandated by the Chofetz Chaim, Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Rambam? (Note I am differentiating a first-hand complaint by the victim to that of an external party based on second hand information as in this case.)

Collectively, the seven questions address the concerns about police motives that I wrote about earlier. They should be self-explanatory. Without answering all of the above questions, I cannot see how this story even begins to “prove his point” that we can rely on the police for a positive outcome.

All told, I was truly hoping at least one of us could get educated. As I wrote him, “Perhaps you can teach me things that I don’t know. Or, just maybe, I can teach you things that you don’t know.” But accomplishing this requires an open line of communication. From my end, the line was open and remains so. From his end there is only deafening silence.

Once again, the fateful words of HRHG Asher Zelig Weiss return to haunt us.

One cannot have a dialog with these people, they are so bent on what they believe.

Rosh Hashanah Message from the Tolna Rebbe

 

HRHG Yitzchak Menachem Weinberg, Shlita is the Tolna Rebbe in Yerushalayim.

As he often does, he sent a Rosh Hashana message to members of his Kehila. I am on their list.

In his message, he noted that the abbreviation for the coming year, תשפז (5787), are the last two digits – פז (87). The word  פז (paz) in Hebrew means high-grade gold. Here in Israel it means gasoline which costs about the same.

The Rebbe noted that this word is mentioned in the following pasuk in Shir HaShirim (5:15): 

שוקיו עמודי שש, מיסדים על אדני פז. 

His (my Beloved’s) calves are like pillars of marble, bolstered on bases of fine gold. 

He says that there is a Targum for this pasuk. The Targum says:

“These refer to words of Torah that Clal Yisrael busies itself with…whereupon HKBH (our Beloved) is filled with compassion upon us and whitens the sins of the people of Israel people like snow.”

The Rebbe sees this as a sign that our success for the upcoming year is dependent on our commitment to learning Torah. As such, he encourages everybody in his Kehila to rev it up a notch and to assist others in this venture. 

The pasuk in Parshas Bechukosai (Vayikra 26:3) tells us that ameilus b’Torah is the sole key to success, prosperity, and peace.

With this, I want to say Thank You to all the readers I have left. And to wish everybody a

כתיבה וחתימה טובה

שנת שלום וברכה והצלחה, בריאות, בני חיי ומזוני וכל מילי דמיטב

And lower gasoline prices.

Sinas Chinam VIII(b) – Innocence Found

 

As we left off in our previous post, we were hearing a fascinating story from the mouth of Zvi Gluck. This was right after he claimed that Rav Elyashiv, ZTL, said "in my presence" (i.e., he was talking to somebody else, not to Zvi) that one should let the police decide if “the person” is lying. Here is the entire story (1:28:11):

 

Now I'm going to share a story if I may, just to prove that point. Many, many years ago, not so many because Amudim was open already, a person who I knew growing up came to me and said, "I need your help. I was falsely accused of molesting somebody." I looked at him. I said, "You need my help. I'm the wrong guy for this." And he says, "No, you're the right guy for this because I firmly believe you look for the truth and not for an agenda."

He says, "I was accused of molesting somebody. I was an employee at a school. The school fired me. My wife doesn't believe me. She left me. I can't get another job. My whole life fell apart. I need you to help prove my innocence." And I remember telling him, "I don't know if I can prove your innocence, but if I find out you're guilty, I'm going to be the one to bury you." And I remember saying it like it was yesterday. And he said, "Game on. Anything you could do."

Make a long story short, this person was a bus driver. The accusation came from a parent on the bus that he molested a child on the bus. I reached out to the school and the school said to me, "What do you mean? You should be so happy we fired him as soon as we heard it." I said, "Firing someone and putting them on a leave of absence till it can be investigated is two different things.”

“Did you go to the police?" No, of course not. “Why not? Well, so how do you know that anything's even true?” Well, we believe the parent. I said, “You know what? I gave my word. Either I'll have to go after this guy or not, but can you, uh, can I speak to the parent that spoke to you?” Of course.

The parent gets in touch with me and tells me, "Oh, wow. It's so nice. You're finally taking it seriously. Someone's taking this seriously." My daughter came home and told me that she saw the bus driver molest another kid on the bus. “Did you call that other parent?” Yeah. “And what did they say?” They said, "I'm crazy and it's not true." Okay. I asked the school, "Can you share with me who the other parent is or have the other parent talk to me?" And the other parent got in touch with me and said, "Listen, we took my daughter to a therapist. We wanted to just be safe, but it came out that nothing was true and we don't know what this other mother was. And we told the school that they need to stop it.”

So, I asked the school, I said, "Is it?" And I don't know. I promise you, I'm not a detective. I'm not an investigator until today. I have no idea why this thought came into my head. But I asked the school specifically in this case, can the bus driver take the bus at night with me and drive the route that he did with these students? I could try to figure out what happened.

I will say to the credit of the school, they never told the bus driver who made the accusations. By the way, bus driver gets on the bus with me. It was a small bus, a mini bus. So, the driver's door, the driver would get in from that door and the students would get in from the other side. My mazal, it was pouring that night and the bus driver starts driving and I'm looking at the route and I see the names and I see in one place he drives on the wrong side of the street. Like, just interesting things happening, and at one point, by a dead end, he cuts the curb and opens up the driver's door.

I said “What's going on here?” He says, “Oh, when it's raining, this family, it's a single mother. She has a bunch of kids in the house. The father, the husband passed away and I basically passed the child to the mother through my door so she shouldn't have to come around the bus.” It was the next stop of the child who complained to her mother ‘cuz I don't get a ride on the bus driver's lap like my friend Chani.

I can promise you if this case went to the police, there would have been no arrest. It would have been investigated properly and this guy's life wouldn't have been destroyed. There is a system that works. If we utilize the system, it will be beneficial to everybody. But this school was so proud of themselves. We fired him right away. You should be happy. No, you destroyed a family. You destroyed a person's life for no reason. So, to answer that question, what if the person's lying? That's for the police to decide. And I stick to that all the time.

Zvi Gluck claims that the purpose of telling this story is to prove a point about letting the police decide whether a “person” (which person???) is lying. He closes the story by saying “So, to answer that question, ‘what if the person's lying?’ That's for the police to decide. And I stick to that all the time.”

I’m sorry to hear that. I think his closing statement is wrong. Moreover, I don’t see how this story even proves his point. We’ll get to this later. But this story does indeed prove other points.

Firstly, it proves that false accusations happen. Most Child Abuse Advocates do not believe that they do. It tells us, contrary to Zvi Gluck’s entire misguided philosophy, that there is such a thing as an “alleged” abuser. Secondly, it shows that false accusations are totally devastating. And that well-meaning people tend to jump to conclusions. It also tells us that the accusers may not actually be “lying” or may not think that they are lying, yet the accusations can still be false.

His remark that “firing someone and putting them on a leave of absence until it can be investigated are two different things” is also very revealing, although he doesn’t see it. What he is saying is that we need to distinguish between what needs to be done to protect potential victims, which is essential, and what “needs” to be done to punish suspected offenders, which is not. I have been preaching this for years (HERE) but nobody cares. Here comes Zvi Gluck and blurts it out as if it means something to him. But this is not what he preaches and certainly not what he practices. 

Zvi conceded that he was trying to "make a long story short". Sometimes this is a service to the listener and sometimes a disservice. For me, it was the latter. There are several gaps in the story due to details he left out.

As I mentioned, I have had personal experience with these types of stories, so I needed to know some of the missing pieces. I also wanted to challenge some of his assertions, especially his unwavering faith in the police. As such, I emailed Zvi Gluck with a list of questions.  The email is dated April 20, 2026 and the subject line was Please End this Sinas Chinam.

Here is the email in its entirety (note - in case this embedded file does not display in the blog email versions, the email can be accessed HERE):

As you can see, I asked 15 questions. I think the questions and their intent are self-explanatory. They were all honest and sincere questions and I really wanted to know the answers. I still do. They are not “shtuch” questions.

15 questions may be a bit heavy and I said as much, so I listed the 5 questions that I thought were the most important.

Zvi Gluck never responded to me. He did not answer the 15 questions and not even the 5 preferred questions. He did not answer a single question. What’s more reprehensible is that he did not even acknowledge the email at all. Not even to politely blow me off and say, “Dear Mr. Hirshman, Thank you for writing. I appreciate your thoughtful questions. Unfortunately, I am very busy and cannot address your email at this time. Have a nice life.” Or anything remotely close to that.

I think he is afraid to answer the questions. Very sadly, he is not the courageous hero I thought he was.

This email was the first of a series of 5 emails that I sent to him pleading to tone down the sinas chinam that he is perpetuating in public. There are four more to come. (Spoiler alert - None of them were answered or even acknowledged.)

For now, all I can say are to repeat the immortal words of HRHG RavAsher Weiss, Shlita:

I came to the conclusion you can't even have a dialogue with these people. They are so bent on what they believe.

 

Sinas Chinam VIII(a) – Innocence Lost

 

Also see this previous post:  Sinas Chinam III - Surviving Malka Leifer

I generally prefer to not expose correspondence that happens behind the scenes, but this is much too important. It’s Kalman again. Kalman sent me another email. He writes:

In all seriousness , I strongly suspect that you are a sexual abuser 

I took your posts and entered them in a psychological profile data bank and it came up that you are very disturbed individual and a probable abuser

I suggest you get help asap 

 

I am totally amazed at the extent that he echoes Reb Yid from my post in 2018. Reb Yid also had similar suspicions. I doubt Reb Yid entered my posts into a psychological profile data bank, but to be frank, I highly doubt that Kalman did it either. Where does one obtain a psychological profile data bank anyway?

The similarity between them is uncanny, to the extent that I wonder if they may even be the same person. I went so far as to ask Kalman if he was ever abused (like Reb Yid was) and he wouldn’t answer me. Let’s review what Reb Yid wrote in 2018.

I have very serious doubts and suspicions of what it is you are hiding from, avoiding and trying to cover up, Hashem Yeracheim. Perhaps the time has come to open an investigation into your past and history.

My response to him at the time:

Sorry to disappoint you. Go ahead if you like. Start with the autobiography in my book. Rated PG (for Holocaust stories and a few violent incidents in Eretz Yisrael).

This response works for Kalman, as well. Nothing much has changed in eight years.

That said, I can agree with Kalman’s data bank about one thing. This is the claim that I am: “[a] very disturbed individual”. There is truth to this but not the way he means. I responded to Kalman:

It is right about one thing, though. I am very disturbed about a lot of things. As I have written.

What am I disturbed about? Why am I so outraged about the players in this episode?

We can start with all the sinas chinam, zilzul Eretz Yisrael, mesira, nekama, and chillul Hashem. That ought to do it right there. But there is something else that I have complained about post after post after post. This is the blood lust, lynch-mob mentality, and universal automatic presumption of guilt that almost everyone on Earth seems to suffer from.

In one of my earliest posts, I wrote that this is because the Human being craves drama. It’s very easy to accuse people of doing nasty things, and a lot of fun to boot. And, since it happens so often, it must always be true. It’s so standard that even Reb Yid and Kalman can level “suspicions” at someone they have never met. This is because everyone seems to carry around their handy-dandy psychological profile data bank. It’s science, how can it be wrong?

Of course, these guys don’t know, or don’t care to know, where I am coming from. I mentioned it sparingly in a few of my posts, notably this one (HERE), but it hasn’t sunk in. So, I will say it again more directly.

I have never molested anybody and I have never been molested, but I have been where very few others claim to have been. And no one who hasn't been there can understand it. I have been in the thick of a case of false accusation. it doesn't happen all that often, but still, it happens way too often. 

B”H, I was not the one that was falsely accused, but it was somebody I have a very close connection to. It taught me how people who cannot think, think. It taught me how rumors fly and how the lynch-mob works. It taught me everything I need to know about how much to trust accusations in general.

The case in point happened over 35 years ago. But since then, I have seen a number of similar incidents. Once you pick up the pattern, it becomes easy to recognize.

There are two levels of false accusations – total and partial. A totally false accusation is exactly as it sounds. The “crime” never happened at all or it did not happen at the hands of the accused. The accused is totally innocent.

A partial false accusation means that a minor event is being overblown into a major event. The accused may not be totally innocent but is not as guilty as they are being made out to be. In all cases the accuser is trying to achieve a certain goal and they are aware that being truthful is not the way to get there. So, they resort to bending and stretching the facts. I see such patterns in the Malka Leifer case.

This plague is not only chronic, but it is also contagious. רבים חללים הפילה.The casualties are many. Among those I was distressed to find on the casualty list is Rav Zvi Gluck of Amudim.

I first heard him out on a Halacha Headlines podcast in 2016 – yes, those ten long years – and I was very impressed by his interview. I quoted him in 2016 and sang the praises of the organization. I did it again in this post in 2022. I wrote:

 

Amudim looks to be an upstanding and dedicated Jewish organization that specializes in crisis intervention and case management. From their website, it looks like they deal with all types of traumatic situations including domestic abuse, substance abuse, other addictions, depression, eating disorders, self-harm, mental health issues, and of course, sexual abuse…Clearly, their goal is to help individual people deal with their problems. They are not interested in “changing the world” and saving it from wicked people. They seem to understand that “wicked” people are created by the same G-d who created the righteous ones – for whatever reasons. We need to coexist with them.

I was trying to say that I did not see the vigilante lynch-mob mentality in Amudim. In his March 15 interview in The Struggle, Zvi Gluck said what I wanted to hear. He said (14:26):

I'm very much in the sense that my focus is more on the victims, helping them, getting them the proper help. Right? I'm very anti-abuse, don't get me wrong. I'll do whatever it takes to stop it, but our focus isn't the abuser. Our focus is the victim. Very often by dealing with the victim you're dealing with the abuser and you have to take a stand which I have no problem doing but that's not our focus.

I took this to mean that he is a “champion of victims”, to do what he can to help them. Okay, if he needs to deal with an abuser to “stop it”, it’s part of helping them. But I hoped that he hadn’t crossed the line to be a “crusader of justice” and an “avenging angel” after the fact, when it doesn’t help the [former] “victims”. I thought he was different than the herd.

Until last March.

This is when Zvi Gluck appeared on the two broadcasts and showed me that he is just as vulnerable to the groupthink as are most others. One was his appearance at the Beis Medrash Ohr HaChaim in Monsey on March 8, 2026. The second was his interview with Joe Farkas on his podcast The Struggle exactly a week later on March 15, 2026.

It disturbed me to discover that Zvi Gluck is one of “them”, one of the lynch mob. I always thought better of him. To his credit, he is more moderate and level-headed than some others, but he peddles the same misconceptions that I listed among the consumers in my Kalman the Konsumer post.

But it’s more than that. Zvi Gluck is a very popular, charismatic, sincere, and influential person. He truly does want to do the right thing and his heart is in the right place. Consequently, when someone like him catches the “let’s-destroy-all-the-perps” sinas chinam disease, he doesn’t just succumb to it, he also spreads it around.

Case in point, throughout both his talks, he uses two terms with complete finality - abusers and victims. In both talks, there is one word that never came out of his mouth: alleged.  Not once did he utter the word alleged. In his world, every abuser is a total confirmed abuser from start to finish. Every victim is a total confirmed victim from start to finish. In his world, there is no such thing as an alleged abuser and no such thing as an alleged victim.

This is how Zvi Gluck can so cynically pronounce (19:00): 

the number one tool used to silence victims is the Torah.

Sounds pretty damning, no?

But let’s revise it just a bit:

the number one tool used to silence alleged victims – or, those who claim to be victims - is the Torah.

Owing to the fact that this situation (non-confirmed accusations) is what is happening in most cases that Zvi Gluck is complaining about, it is not nearly as damning. The abuser may not really be an abuser and the victim may not really be a victim. Shouldn't we turn to the Torah for guidance?

Zvi Gluck doesn't think so. And here is something that I am convinced Zvi Gluck would never admit to. 

It’s a two-way street.

Let’s go back one minute earlier in his talk (18:04). Zvi Gluck said as follows:

But what made it even more complex, more difficult, and even worse in some ways is the communal failure. The collective communal failure, quoting the Torah, quoting Rabonim, misquoting Rabanim, misquoting Gamara in an effort to silence people.

I hate to say it, but the number one tool used by advocates such as Zvi Gluck to silence and to mahser accused people (alleged abusers), is also the Torah. Quoting the Torah and misquoting the Gemara and misapplying the concepts such as Lo Taamod, Rodef, and Pikuach Nefesh. Quoting and misquoting and misrepresenting Rabbanim such as Rav Elyashiv (1:27:50) and the Tzitz Eliezer (24:12).

As Zvi said on March 15 (41:25): It's okay for the goose. It's okay for the gander. 

All told, from his own words, there is every indication that he has sold out to the lynch-mob. But, wait!

Toward the end of his talk in Monsey, Zvi tells us a heart-wrenching story which effectively negates everything he was preaching until then. And he doesn’t even realize that he is doing it. Strangely enough, he tells it for all the wrong reasons. He says he is telling the story “to prove a point”. In my opinion, (1) it does not prove his point and (2) it proves several points he was not trying to make. In some ways it redeems him from his misguidedness, but in some ways it doesn’t.

On the side, I was indeed very impressed with how he dealt with the situation and see him as a hero in this particular story. This doesn't make him any less misguided.

I was spellbound by the story because it is so similar to the event that happened over 35 years ago, mentioned above, that “taught me everything I need to know about how much to trust accusations”.

Here is the story (1:28:11):

Now I'm going to share a story, if I may, just to prove that point. Many many years ago, not so many because Amudim was open already, a person who I knew growing up came to me and said, "I need your help. I was falsely accused of molesting somebody."

A false accusation? Really? Is such a thing possible?

Well, there’s a lot more to this story and a lot to unpack from it. I can’t do it in this post. The rest of the story and what it says to us will have to wait for the next post. Stay tuned for it. All I will say now is that we should all be disturbed.

Very disturbed.

To be continued…