This past week, two frum podcasts featured young Orthodox men openly discussing the fraud they committed and the severe consequences they now face. Their stories may have shocked some, but for others, they were reminders of a bigger issue: a community-wide failure to teach our young people the fundamental values of honesty, integrity, and financial responsibility.
If you think these two men are isolated cases, then you’re missing the larger, uncomfortable truth. Stories like theirs are cropping up too often, and we must ask ourselves why and how we, as a community, are allowing this to happen.
First, let’s address the basics: have we forgotten to instill in our children a bedrock commitment to honesty? It’s troubling to see how many young frum individuals assume they’ll “never get caught” or believe that a quick “deal” to make money fast is somehow justified. This mindset goes beyond poor judgment—it speaks to a lack of foundational values. When did we stop teaching our children that ethical conduct is more important than easy money?
A clue to the root of the problem emerged in one of these podcast episodes: “All we spoke about in Yeshiva was the guy we know who left Kollel and in less than two years owns 15 nursing homes.” Why are our kids looking up to people solely because they appear to have money? Why do they idolize those who “made it big” and overlook how they achieved their wealth?
The sad truth is that the drive to “make it rich quick” has permeated our community. Many young people are being told that their success is measured by wealth and status, often attained through risky, high-stakes investments. They’re taught that business success is defined by “wheeling and dealing” rather than building value slowly, steadily, and ethically. And here’s a critical reality check: many of these supposed “gvirim” don’t actually possess the wealth they display. They’re leveraged to the hilt, with towering debts that can come crashing down with a single misstep.
This is not true wealth; it’s a facade, an illusion of prosperity. And we’re setting our young people up to be enthralled by it.
Some may argue that we need more oversight or organizations to vet “kosher” investments for our community. But let’s stop looking for shortcuts. The solution is already here: it’s called education. We have schools, and our children spend thousands of hours in them. Yet, instead of delivering the well-rounded education they need to thrive in a complex world, we’re cutting back on secular subjects. We’re expecting every child to become the next gadol hador or to find a calling in chinuch, while sidelining basic financial literacy, ethical business practices, and an understanding of the world around them.
Financial education is not a contradiction to Torah learning; it’s a necessity. Teaching our children how to navigate the real world, how to earn an honest living, and how to understand financial laws and responsibilities should be priorities. We need to guide them toward careers built on integrity and skills rather than fast, flashy money-making schemes.
It’s time to address the illusions we’ve allowed to fester. As a community, we must reassess our values and take responsibility for the lessons we’re imparting to the next generation. Let’s teach our children that true wealth is built on honesty, hard work, and the pursuit of meaningful contributions—not on schemes and shortcuts.
Signed,
C.J.
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53 Responses
I don’t understand how someone who learnt the ג בבות and/or חושן משפט for several years, and supposedly understood every סברה, should then do business in such a way.
Ethical conduct is not just an extracurricular activity, we learn המחליף פרה בחמור for us to know how to actually be מחליף פרה בחמור.
We might not need to start teaching ethical conduct in Yeshiva, rather start teaching תורה in a way that it is viscerally experienced not just intellectually.
Agreed. Very well said.
The Yeshivos cannot teach it because it would be hypocritical. The Yeshivos routinely “cut corners” and fudge the reality to get extra givernment funding and grants!!! The Yeshivos gush fake honor on donors at dinners, when everyone knows this honor is not merited for the person but for the person’s wallet!!! In fact, the Yeshivos ARE teaching this negative message to the students: lie, cheat, mislead, fake it, and do whatever it takes, as long as you can get away with it, just to get ahead and make a few extra dollars. The Yeshivos show the students that money is much more important than values. So, how can the Yeshivos teach such ethics????
There needs to be a deep dive by the frum community about frum managed or owned nursing homes , it’s a disaster when it comes to honesty. Want to talk about ruining vulnerable people lives while making serious quick money frum owned nursing homes is were too look. Also, cash advance / shark loans that frum people are involved in , that’s all a disaster. YWN should look into those two industries.
One of the interviews was shallow and sick. And definitely should not be promoted on Jewish media. He is an Eli Weinstein 2.0 he will be back at it as soon as he’s out
Know what makes me sick is that one of the “interviewers” has some big fat skeletons in his closet. Pretty lucky the statue of limitations are over.
This is such garbage. The individual in question has robbed dozens of people in the most brazen fashion imaginable together with his father. And they’re going to jail for it. Rather than pay his victims back, he’s trying to pretend that his making public service announcements that casts our entire community in a bad light just to save himself.
His father robbed me and then his son, who complains about not receiving a financial education, reached out to my attorney fourteen years later and demanded original documentation which took him months to find. By that time, the son said he doesn’t have to pay because my lawyer took too much time to search two separate storage houses for the documents in question.
He may have been raised by a terrible example, but he took it to the next level. This is exemplified in a shocking lawsuit in which the son doesn’t even contradict the allegations made by the plaintiff.
He has no morals. He’s a brazen liar, fraud and cheat. He will go to jail for far less than he deserves. And his problem is not a communal one. The community needs to be more educated about sociopathy and evil, and not be blown away by con artists like that degenerate and his father who informed on everyone and anyone they can just to save their backside.
Shame on them!!! And shame on you for being so stupid to fall for his nonsense.
i listened to both of them. one of them showed real remorse. one was reading the quotes his lawyer gave him. why didnt we mention that his father is going to jail next moth also…. for the same exact crimes?
one of them is a 3rd generation ganav,
his grandfather milked almanos and yesomim out out MANY MANY millions of dollars.
the kid has zero remorse.
Anyone else notice that one of them decided to slandr the entire BMG on his way out of the interview?
8,000 Yungerleit and he said “HALF” are doing credit card point scams, HALF.
This lying thief, couldn’t even tell the emmes on an interview that is likely going to be sent to the judge to show he has remorse. Trash talk 8,000 yungerleit. What a disgusting thing to do. And David Lichtenstein should be ashamed that he didn’t intervene and challenge that part.
Alte Mirrer: you’re exactly right. I’m calling my lawyer tomorrow. I think I’m going to write a letter to the judge just to explain how these people have wrecked our community by taking advantage of our honesty and trust, and preying on our way of life by pretending to be one of us. The father and son ran an affinity scam, plain and simple. They ruined hundreds of families with their blandishments and lies. I had no savings for years because of what his father did to me. How dare he blame our community?!
everyone knows when they are stealing. do me a favor.
Last week there was a major event in lakewood about doing things correctly. rav Elya Brudny spoke, Atoorney ben Brafman spoke. The Aleph foundation and Agudah made it.
SENEVNTEEN PEOPLE SHOWED UP. Literally. ENtire room of a thousands seats was EMPTY.
No one is interested.
Just keep investing with criminals and the thieves will keep on thieving.
There is guy all over the news the past few months. His empire is a big fat scam, clearly. Do you think this guy actually needed someone to tell him what he was doing before he started that it’s against the law? Of course not. When he gets arrested one day, I’d love to hear his podcast.
* not all but some nursing homes owners and managers
Mesila has an excellent curriculum that combines Torah hashkafa with practical advice. The problem is that too many boys’ high schools either don’t have any time dedicated to what they consider non-Torah classes, or they are too busy teaching classes that are not relevant (trigonometry, chemistry, etc.)
Where can I listen to these podcasts?
Aleph Institute has a great new project with courses for yeshivos on these matters. It’s called Project 432.
P432 dot org
The problem is we have separated honesty, integrity and financial responsibilities from avodas Hashem. These middos are all part of being a ben torah and a yirai shamayim. The fact the fact that there can be many guys who go through the “system” and don’t have a deep commitment to these values shows that we have a serious problem that goes beyond financial ruin. One should need no further education after Yeshiva to know not to lie and sign false documents.
Learning financial literacy is important but you’re just trying to find a way to blame the yeshivos. You don’t learn how to syndicate deals or anything too complicated in any basic financial ed course. In college the basic financial literacy courses are budgeting and investing for retirement. Nothing more. That’s important but not going to prevent any type of fraud. People commit fraud in the secular world as well as the frum world. For one reason. Greed. That’s it. Not because a person went to a bad yeshiva, had bad parents, didn’t learn financial literacy, or any other nonsense. Greed. That’s it. We all have a yetzer hara, when there are dollar signs flashing, kavod at stake, or even the thought of having to tell someone you lost their money in a bad deal “financial literacy” you learned 10- 20 years ago won’t help you, because the yetzer hara isn’t defeated by learning which IRA is best for you. Don’t be naive. some people lust, some indulge, and many are greedy and they’ll do whatever it takes to make money legally or not.
Btw if you want a good look into what greed looks like Watch or listen to American Greed.
First of all there is no concept in the religious world of making a son pay for his father’s sins.
From my limited understanding of things this son had a wild start but never took any funds from anyone for investments himself and most definitely has no funds from anyone frum today. It’s against all hashkafa to blame him for his family’s misdeeds. He’s young and for the most part had nothing to do with his family’s business dealings. The secular media enjoys destroying others without knowing full context. But that’s NOT US.
Shame on those who are trying to.
seems like everyone knows which podcasts these are, anyone care to share ?
On the contrary
Taking all hatred away from the equation, the interviewer in discussion was heartfelt and genuine. Most of you have no clue how to even identify him from a crowd or ever had any interaction with him, yet you start blaming other’s destruction on him.
This conversation thread is sickening, baseless hatred against the interviewer.
Learn your subjects before spewing, all of you.
I didn’t take the BMG comment as blaming or slander, it was a point made that we need to be more careful in this era. Simply said and rightfully said.
Besides, “Solomonp” – I highly doubt you’ve ever had any remote interaction with the subject interviewer.
The interview with David was beautiful and took a ton of courage to share.
Raw honest heartfelt and not scripted. You can tell it wasn’t being read off of a draft.
It takes tremendous strength to get up and speak so openly like that- and the proof is in the pudding right here! Look at how much bashing he’s receiving from people that never crosser paths with him.
His message was spot on and so critical in today’s times. Much respect 🙏
Yeshivos cannot teach financial literacy because it would lead bochurim to question going to kollel . How is it possible for a person to start his career after being married with a few kids and no formal training and then be immediately expected to pay tuition, buy a nice house, a car, camp, Yom Tov… it’s impossible. It happens but each case has a story that either involves significant sacrifices or family money – neither of which can be assumed when a bochur is in yeshiva. The only thing that can be done is what is being done which is to teach people that they just need to have emuna and bitachon and everything works out.
Kudos to the vile commenters above for disclosing their biases and admitting they hate this person because of his last name. It’s nice that they left a modicum of honesty in their otherwise exaggerated diatribes.
What I don’t understand is why YWN allows blatant LH, MSR, and borderline mesira on their platform. I guess there is more money in blogosphere than in legitimate journalism.
I know this case intimately, I’m talking about the good and the bad relates to all parties in this case.
This interviewer had the ability to “maser” on many and walk away scott free just like BD did on everyone else in this mess. It’s no secret what BD has done and continues to do to the frum community. Your facts are not just wrong they’re pure evil. This is a young man that didn’t have it easy for whatever reasons they were and he is sticking to his core beliefs though he has the easy ways out just to protect those around him that can get hurt. Most of your dirty comments should be reconsidered before sharing them so freely.
Pure trash destroying innocent families because he had the courage to speak up and share something truthful and important.
phatogre77: there’s no “we.” There’s they. Particularly one kid who’s not yet thirty who filed fraudulent taxes in other people’s name, stole money, lied to banks, and caused tens of millions of losses with his father so that they can feign wealth. That’s the kind of family he was brought up in.
It’s not “we.” It’s him, his disgusting father, and a handful of others who think that “we”— the guys who work hard to build wealth — are suckers.
His father has hundreds of people — mostly frum investors, brokers, lenders, lawyers and others — who were left poorer and bereft for trying to help him. He didn’t pay them back, nor did he ever intend to, and he refused to pay them in full or even at all in many cases and then made up stories about them.
He’s not we. He’s the predator. We’re the victims. And our society should be trained not to be provide his ilk succor and sanctuary in our neighborhoods. They’re not religious; they don’t belong in our communities; and they have no right to paint our community in a palpable false life in the hopes of improving their sentencing.
What’s a yungerman supposed to do when the cost of living is so high to be a frum jew.
After a few years being married a yungerman needs a bigger apt/house, tuition is high and tuition commitees aren’t giving breaks, regular expenses for a family with a few kids is alot.
When no one is giving the yungerman a break, sometimes the easiest thing is to do shady stuff/cut corners.
Shame on you, maybe call out the greedy landlords/schools or rich people who aren’t giving enough to the moisdos
Lakewoodbachur2024: I most certainly had interactions with the interviewee, his father and two of his uncles.
Hockhock: what strength? It was a mawkish, myopic script in which he decried his personal woes and grossly misrepresented what he has done.
Tosfos: Your knowledge of the facts is limited indeed. I’d be more than glad to cite a case from Kings County where you can familiarize with how and he and his father acted in concert to destroy investors. What’s more, he didn’t even deny those allegations in his opposition papers and was in any case found guilty in the judge’s opinion.
“I didn’t know that it’s wrong to forge documents and steal identities because everyone in my community does it” is the greatest expression of moral cowardice imaginable. It reaks of contempt and entitlement. And it’s completely unacceptable.
BD is a mosser.
BD is a mosser
BD is a mosser
He destroyed many lives, he stole tens of millions of dollars in scams, just ask Ben Zahler or Ari Harrel as well as a dozen other names I can share right now. He stole from Shaul Greenwald in the millions, he stole from Nussbaum in the millions he stole from B Gottesman in the millions. Fraud is his middle name and his last name.
BD caused Riverside to close and caused Madison to lay off hundreds of employees feeding their families….
Besides, “Solomonp” – I highly doubt you’ve ever had any remote interaction with the subject interviewer.
True. I never met David Lichtenstein. I did meet have interactions with the interviewee, however, as well as his father. Not sure what you mean by a “remote interaction.” Our interactions were not “remote.” I could easily identify the pretty boy in a lineup any day of the week.
The issue the letter writer is concerned with is that young people get caught committing fraud and find they are facing severe prison sentences. The way to prevent this problem is not just by teaching honesty, it is by getting them to understand the severe consequences of getting caught. That defrauding financial institutions gets a person up to 30 years in prison. When people commit these types of fraud all they know is that if they get caught they’ll be in trouble, if they knew their lives would effectively be over. They say don’t do the crime unless you can do the time, so these boys should be made aware what type of time they will face if they are caught. To their minds its simply a shtick, to the federal government it is an attack on the bedrock of the nations financial system and a crime that deserves extremely severe penalties.
To Lakewoodbachur2024 and Hockhock: No! Enough is enough. The community must stand up and ostracized these people. Don’t tell me they didn’t know they were stealing. This isn’t the first time its happened and we clearly have a problem in the community. If we let them give one interview and all of a sudden we say wow they are so great, this is what leads to the next fraud. Every jew is precious and i hope they find peace and I do not have one ounce of hatred towards them, but people must know there are consequences for their actions. They should not be given a platform in the community at all. When their message is passed around it in some way gives them legitimacy. People need to understand that whatever courage they are showing now pales in comparison to those who live with honesty and integrity. How about instead of elevating these people we can tell the story of the guy who went to jail then we interview the many many people who live their lives in an honest way. Lets hear from the silent majority who have never stolen and hear some practical advise about how to never get into trouble in the first place from real honest people.
Can someone pls post a link with the 2 podcasts? Thanks.
My feelings are although education is important and there isn’t enough in our community there’s another issue. Sometimes the economy is bad, we need to stop stigmatizing frugality. People shouldn’t be embarrassed to live simply have one course shabbos meals. Chazal say to make shabbos weekday rather than take tzedaka
You are all missing the point.
The Gemara tells us precisely the reason for this problem: ‘If you don’t teach your children a trade, they will resort to banditry.’
Our boys get the most basic of secular educations, spend years in yeshiva, are warned off attending college, marry young, and are then expected to support a growing family in an expensive Frum area.
Of course they resort to scams and get rich quick schemes.
How about we give our boys a full and enriching secular education, ensure they attend college and get a professional degree or learn a trade at a trade school, and get their feet on the career ladder well in time for them to support their wife and children?
How about we teach them that if they can’t afford to live ‘in town’, then they need to move somewhere cheaper?
How about parents stop subsidizing their 20-30 year old adult children, creating a dependency and an artificial feeling of stability even as they spend well beyond their actual needs?
Then perhaps, some classes in financial literacy.
@truth2power
What you say sounds nice and (I am someone with a normal job making normal income) but the people we are talking about don’t want to make the income of a plumber, lawyer or doctor. They want big money and they want it fast. They work hard and take big risks. That’s why they make a lot of money. But some of them see dollar signs when certain situations arise and can’t revisit the temptation. No amount of college or any trade course is going to change that.
The exact concept the author is calling for is already well in the works.
The Aleph institute is working on a course for Yeshivos to teach Bochurim about this https://www.p432.org/subpage/yeshiva
A real Torah based financial literacy course is not just about budgeting. It wakes up kids from a young age that money does not grow on trees, you need to figure out how you pay for______ and that there is a moral way how to make a living. That may or may not require a secualr education. It is however the most crucial lessons needed for our children. Waiting until they are married for a few years is too late.
I have very little knowledge of this “scam” and all around.
I have a different but related point.
1. When most bochurim are wearing nothing less than a custom suit and a hat that costs half a thousand dollars – we’re in trouble.
2. When the (most) idolized people are the mega rich yungerleit- we’ve given a direction to travel for many of our young ones.
3. When girls who don’t have a money making degree are worth considerably less than those who do- Hashem help us.
Someone just sent me a link to this discussion. I don’t know the supposed swindlers being discussed, or the interviews with them. But I find it funny that any of you are bemoaning the problems of our young gvirim committing financial crimes and debating whether it is our yeshivas faults for not teaching financial literacy?
We learn honesty from our elders and our teachers through their actions. Not from a class that is taught. When yeshivos praise and take money from young machers without a care about where they made the money , does that teach the younger generation that honesty is paramount to everything else?
My father was together with the Klausenberger rebbe in concentration camp. They were given a ration of a slice of stale bread and watery soup every day. The rebbe refused to eat the soup or anything cooked. My father tricked a female kapo into giving him bread and potatoes and would bring solenof the food to the rebbe. My father told me that every time he brought a crust of bread the rebbe would look him in the eyes and say “Velvele, promise me you didn’t steal this from a yid”. What Yeshiva or moisid asks such a question today. The make parties for career criminals that gave them money, when they are released from prison. They write letters of praise to judges, when criminal askonim or R”l child molesters are being sentenced.
Lakewood wa established to be an ihr hatoira. A town that didn’t allow chairs in pizza shops. Now look at us. Our leaders have supported a group of askonim and controlled a gullible klal to support politicians that are in office simply to do favors for a few “gvirim” that are devoted to helping the yeshivas. It’s a big circle of corruption that is all done in the name of Torah. Any Yeshiva man knows the concept of Mitzva habaah beavaira. Stealing from the klal and supporting corrupt politicians and making the klal vote for the politicians that are hurting the klal, is the ultimate crime. Being perpetrated for years and years. And feeding the klal with media and websites that are told wha to write to accomplish their goals. (Talk about fake news)
In closing, the fault for so many of our “businessmen” doing unethical crimes against other jews is….well as they say, the fish is rotten from the head down. It’s not a lack of the right education. It’s the lack of the right role models, or a perverted idea of what a role model is.
And speaking of role models. This past month, watching my entire lakewood community celebrate and vote for a man that is the antithesis of everything we are “taught” to believe and hold dear. Goes against everything our torah represents, and praise him and put our faith in a man that has repeatedly lied and shown he cannot be trusted , was, disheartening. I saw clearly how so many of our people could so easily be fooled by repeated lies and propaganda spewed.by a menuval that holds himself to be the greatest and belittles everyone he deems unfaithful to him.
And then everyone wonders where our children get the idea that crime pays.
I dont know who these supposed criminals are that were discussed in this letter and comments. I am not repudiated them, or criticizing any of the podcasts that showcased them. I am simply pointing out that we have been learning that crime pays for many years now. And it’s not going to get better until we stop voting for dishonest people and honoring others for their crimes.
The list of things that the children are not being taught that they should be is getting longer and longer. My children came home last week telling me that they got a new period of that is learning Hilchos Mezuzah instead of English. The children after all don’t “want” to learn secular studies so why stress about it and teach it. Did anyone ask you what you wanted to learn? I suggest giving up on the schools and going back to the old ways to teach your children important things on your own. If you wait for them, with their absurd curriculums, like testing girls all day every day instead of teaching them for example, and also teaching them completely irrelevant subjects, etc.., you will wait a long time for your children to be educated.
Great talk from Rabbi Sholom Ahron Ehrenfeld on what money guarantees
https://torahanytime.com/lectures/278219
I think the need for money is the biggest problem these days. As a middle class family with a decent income, we don’t splurge but often can’t keep up with our bills which just keep rising. I try to raise my kids with appreciation for what we have and make them work for the things they want… problem is my teenager took it a bit far. He wants a lot of stuff so he’s always looking for ways to make money and already started investing. He first started telling me it’s long term investment like bank account with better interest (s and p, VTI) but of course he got into day trading. His older cousin keeps trying to get him into what I consider scams- investing money with strangers . Letting random people use his eBay account and they’ll pay him percent of sales… I keep trying to hammer into his brain there’s no such thing as quick money. And if he ever encounters one he should run the other way. Too bad his desire for money clouds his brain and thank gd I’m still in control of his accounts. Hopefully will learn his lesson without losing too much money.
I’m reading through the actual charges against one of the ones on the podcast.
The guy on the podcast keeps mentioning that he got involved in a grey area.
However, the charges say that they made a fraudulent sale with a fake entity in order to falsely inflate the value of the property by more the 25 million. I have a hard time seeing the grey area here. Seems like straight up fraud.
Doesn’t seem very remorseful.
Here is the link for the podcast on Spotify. The particular segment discussed here starts at 11:58
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0jul9aaCnCGI5MOGsHTXWS?si=0VQ4lR9JSRyTi4pwCUePeA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A3mW7kRdiTnO16GiryT7jkH&t=952
I would also add, that the scheme only works if the title company cooperates by allowing the money of the fraudulent transaction to be used in the same closing as the real transaction. It would appear that the title companies were complicit and maybe deserving of all the penalties they are currently facing.
I’m assuming this is the other one
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7lTVKDM3iFrNnHhEzJYNSA?si=10xx444nT5-7a_hizRz5-g&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A1sOqEDS4lyK5nQPEnJ8nf3&t=5
@neversurprised
This is precisely what needs fixing. Create a system whereby ‘making big money and making it fast’ is not necessary to survive in the community (because everyone starts their career 10 years late with 5 kids…)
Of course no roshei yeshiva were quoted in the letter or even asked for an opinion. Sadly the frum online media needs clickbate to remain relevant to keep up with social media agendas. It’s ironic that while the cost of living for frum families is high, the frum media keeps pushing gvir culture and social pressure living but blames it all on the yeshivos.
How about not glorifying material wealth on these podcasts on frum news sites like Yeshiva World!
I would love to hear a podcast with a victim of such a fraud
I would love to hear a podcast with a victim of such fraud.