two answers:
to feif un:
First, shlomo carlebach received smicha, as far as I know, so whatever his sins (if any) he is a Rabbi. You do not have to agree with this, but semicha gives you the right to be called a Rabbi and therefore Shlomo Carlebach was indeed a rabbi.
Second- I was not there forty years ago, so what you are saying about your cousin may or may not be true. Halachically, it is even beyond “ed mipi ed”. I wrote that ,indeed, Shlomo Carlebach hugged women (more of that later)but how you wrote about it is beyond disapproval.
to avhaben: I am not going into the debate of “kirvus le’aryos” because there are different shittas out there on that. Shlomo’s argument (and he said that many times) about hugging everyone he came into contact with (men and women) was based on the gemoro of saving a woman drowning. the gemoro says that if someone says: “I cannot jump into the water to save her because I can’t touch her” he is a “chossid shotteh”,(a stupid chossid) thereby saying clearly that you cannot use an esoteric reason when someone is dying and you must save him/her to avoid saving her.
Shlomo said that this gemoro is talking about physical danger, the person (woman) is drowning in the physical world and we must save her,regardless of the problem of being in physical contact with a woman. Today, there are thousands of people-including women- who are drowning in the spiritual world and we must do all we can to save them. If this includes putting aside the question of “negiah’, then so be it. Saving the person (woman) from spiritual drowning supersedes this, based on the gemoro.
You don’t have to accept this reasoning and ,indeed, many people have been able to bring back jews without this approach but it is a rational approach and shlomo used his approach to save thousands of jews- all singlehandedly.
His influence on the Jewish people cannot be underestimated.