Reply To: Requesting information about frumteens and R’ Yaakov Shapiro (hear me out mods!)

Well I’m seeing all this information way too late. I had a vision that this wouldn’t get posted and I checked and well…I guess it took a while for them to let it through and by that time I had stop checking the CR cuz I figured it wasn’t going through.

Ok I actually learned a few things thanks stalking, um I mean researching online.
I actually managed to track down Rabbi Shapiro and speak to him myself.

About being anonymous: This site was started in the 1990’s when that’s what worked for people, every blogger was anonymous and people followed them.
2. He wanted people to listen to him, not because he had a fancy name (he is a huge masmid of Rabbi Shneur Kotler (Son of Rabbi Aron Kotler) (who actually told Rabbi Shapiro to create the site) but because what he was saying actually made sense.
3. It was huge back then, he didn’t want people stalking him, and he said although he was anonymous many people found him and sent him hate mail, threatening him (for making their kids frummer and “extremist” (oh you mean chareidi?) and his children.

I spoke to some Rabbis from my seminary, from Aish, and from other places that are very credible and a lot even knew him and praised his work very well.

If you aren’t chareidi then you may find his hashkafa not your type, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad.

Why was it shut down? Well he transfered to an updated site called JewsWithQuestions, but when the internet asifa happened they lost 50 percent of their traffic and people just stopped coming. He also didn’t have time, it was his students and other people he supervised that did frumteens.

When I spoke to Rabbi Shapiro he actually praised me for being so cautious about using and trusting his site. I was extremely cautious when I called him and told him that I want to know who he thinks he is, and how can I know if he’s credible. (I really asked such a big Rabbi that…I needed to know) again he said that the formula was helpful 10 years ago, but the world is different now and anyone going online has a good reason to be cautious as there is no credible information online about him, his website, etc.

Sam2, as with anything in the frum world, everyone is so different. You create a formula or a system that helps 90 percent of people, there’s always the ones that need something different. I’m sorry, but that’s not a condemnation of him.

Syag, he’s saying that this was online, no names, nothing. It could not of hurt that much. Most kids have enough self esteem not to take anything online that seriously.

I hope this sheds some light on this.
One last point, when speaking to my principal from seminary (a well known BY seminary, plus my principal speaks in many other seminaries like Darchei Binah, Pninim, Seminar, etc.) he told me that Rabbi Shapiro is chariedi, but represents someone with extreme veiws. His veiws aren’t wrong, but sometimes if you aren’t chariedi yourself you will find his veiws “exteme”.