Home › Forums › Controversial Topics › Info Needed On Bais Din Of Lakewood (Knopfler)
- This topic has 19 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 7 months ago by Mivaksheyemes.
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February 3, 2013 6:29 pm at 6:29 pm #608061FerdParticipant
Does anyone know anything about this bais din and the dayan….some guy named Knopfler?
Showed up in Lakewood like 5 years ago and opened a bais din.
I am looking for any info possible.
February 3, 2013 6:42 pm at 6:42 pm #940698Menachem MelamedParticipantI don’t know anything about Lakewood, but if the bais din is an appropriate beis-din, it is highly inappropriate to refer to the dayan as “some guy”.
February 3, 2013 7:32 pm at 7:32 pm #940699YentaParticipantwow, what a shoita you are (or maybe mr. knopfler himself).
i think it’s highly inappropriate to be using the name “Menachem Melamed”, when that is not your name.
besides knopfler is a “guy”, and not a dayan.
the guy shows up in lakewood a few years ago, and make a huge tumult that all the gitten written since lakewood was built (from the days of reb aron kotler zatzal) are posul. this means thousands of mamzirim running around the world.
the azus this poya had to every posek in lakewood is nothing but incredible.
there are gedolim poskim living there, and some yunger gornisht shows up and does such a thing?!?!
rabbi forsheimer, rabbi shmuel meir katz, reb shlomo miller…not to mention the 4 roshei hayeshiva and the mashgiach…and of course they follow the psak of reb aron in regards to gitten.
like 100 rabbonim in lakewood (just about every single rov) signed a public kol koreh that noone should be goires his bais din.
this is just the tip of the iceberg……. (one day the real info will get out on mr. knopfler and company)
this is not lashon hara, but publicly requested by the rabbonim to be mifarsem.
so yes, he is a “g-u-y”.
February 3, 2013 11:43 pm at 11:43 pm #940701ChortkovParticipantI know his family (although I have not met him personally) and I know his family is very ????. His father is a Rav and Rosh Yeshiva and a very big ????? ???.
February 4, 2013 4:58 am at 4:58 am #940702147ParticipantAs Rav Schwab ZT’L used to state when officiating a Get:- If anyone wishes to say or state anything , now is the time to do so, and they can say whatever complaints against my Gittin which they wish, but once this Get is dispensed, they shall be under a most severe banishment, if they should so much as dare open their mouth.
February 4, 2013 5:18 am at 5:18 am #940703yitayningwutParticipantFrom what I hear he is a victim of the establishment.
February 4, 2013 5:57 am at 5:57 am #940704HealthParticipantYitay – All I know is what’s presented here is one-sided. I tried to post the other side, but it didn’t make it past the censor.
February 4, 2013 6:11 am at 6:11 am #940705yitayningwutParticipantHere’s the story as far as I know it. The following was told to me by a rav who currently resides and is respected and sought out within the Lakewood community, and is not considered “controversial.” Don’t take my word for it; ask around and verify the facts for yourself. Just don’t be naive. I am sharing it because it would be unfair to the parties involved not to.
Rabbi Knopfler showed up in Lakewood a few years ago and set up shop. Some people did not appreciate that he did so without permission from the establishment.
At some point there was a Mr. A who summoned a Mr. B to a din Torah at his Beis Din. Mr. B was a wealthy man with connections to a certain Rabbi X. Instead of going straight to the din Torah, Mr. B asked Rabbi X if he should bother doing so. Rabbi X allegedly told him he should ignore it, as Rabbi X was on the side of those people I mentioned earlier. This Rabbi X does not live in Lakewood, but he is highly respected by the Lakewood community to the extent that the average Lakewood rav will generally be mevatel himself to Rabbi X.
Undeterred, Rabbi Knopfler’s Beis Din issued a siruv against this wealthy person. The siruv also implicated Rabbi X for the advice he gave. This was obviously a very bold move on Rabbi Knopfler’s part, considering Rabbi X’s standing in the Lakewood community.
In response to Rabbi Knopfler’s supposedly unwarranted brazenness, a letter was issued by members of the establishment vilifying him and saying he is unfit to rule on matters and that his gittin are worthless etc. This letter was allegedly signed by many respected rabbonim in town.
Again undeterred, Rabbi Knopfler went and presented his case to R’ Elyashiv. R’ Elyashiv supposedly said that he was 100% right and that the idea that someone already qualified should need special permission from the establishment is untrue. Some time after this, a letter came out from one of the roshei yeshiva saying that Rabbi Knopfler’s Beis Din is perfectly reliable. Furthermore, the rav who told me all this was told by a leading rav in Lakewood that his signature had appeared on the original letter without his knowledge or consent. In other words, it was at least in some part a forgery.
All this is a couple of years old. Last year I was walking in yeshiva and I saw the original letter hanging up again – though not behind the glass where the official signs go. In other words it had not been officially placed there by the yeshiva. What it was doing there, I don’t know. This letter had already been retracted by its main signatory and claimed a forgery by one of its supposedly leading signatories. The rav telling me about this was under the assumption that it was nothing new; it was the same old politics.
I have not been updated since then. But this is the background as of a few months ago.
February 4, 2013 8:09 am at 8:09 am #940706takahmamashParticipantI know his family (although I have not met him personally) and I know his family is very ????. His father is a Rav and Rosh Yeshiva and a very big ????? ???.
Having a family that’s chashuv or a father who’s a talmud chacham doesn’t mean anything if the son doesn’t know what he’s doing.
February 4, 2013 8:27 am at 8:27 am #940707Ðash®ParticipantThe only undisputed fact I was able to find is that he wanted to establish what the natural landmarks for Lakewood are. I found no hard evidence that he intended to invalidate previous gitten written in Lakewood. Everything else I found is from those that attempted to discredit him.
February 4, 2013 6:50 pm at 6:50 pm #940708yitayningwutParticipantHealth – see what I wrote.
February 4, 2013 7:29 pm at 7:29 pm #940709HealthParticipantYitay – You buttered it up and that’s why your post made it through. I wasn’t so gentle and therefore my post didn’t make it through. But I did tell the OP – that I personally have not looked into this issue and am not on either side. The best thing for him to do is to ask as many people and Rabbonim that he knows and not just in Lakewood, if he needs to know L’masseh.
And btw, even though I live here, I did my GET with a Bais Din from a different city/town.
February 4, 2013 7:34 pm at 7:34 pm #940710ConfuciousMemberWhy did you go to a different town for the GET?
February 4, 2013 7:48 pm at 7:48 pm #940711HealthParticipantConfucious – Many reasons. The main one is – I wanted to!
February 4, 2013 8:01 pm at 8:01 pm #940712ConfuciousMemberIs one of the reasons because there is a halachic shaila of what river to put on the get?
February 4, 2013 9:20 pm at 9:20 pm #940713HealthParticipantConfucious -“Is one of the reasons because there is a halachic shaila of what river to put on the get?”
I posted this above:
“that I personally have not looked into this issue and am not on either side.”
Did you think this was a lie? I’m not a Poisek. Your question should be addressed to your Rov.
February 5, 2013 12:00 am at 12:00 am #940714truthsharerMemberHow were gittin done before BMG setup shop?
Interesting side fact, Isaac Leeser went around and setup the proper spellings of US cities so that gittin (and other documents) would be uniform. I’m not sure why, but many people, most often chassidim, decided to change some of the established spellings.
February 5, 2013 12:57 am at 12:57 am #940715sheinMemberYou are assuming that Isaac Leeser got it correct.
February 5, 2013 2:24 am at 2:24 am #940716truthsharerMemberWell, if he was the first one to go around and make standardized spellings and it was followed after he did it, then it stands to reason that he got it correctly. I’m not sure why someone would then decide to change spellings, even if they feel it might be more grammatically correct, it’s irrelevant. They are changing the way people spelled things for many years and are introducing doubt in the way cities are spelled.
March 25, 2013 3:01 pm at 3:01 pm #940717MivaksheyemesMember -
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