Rabbi Hired To Replace Mikveh-Peeping Barry Freundel at Kesher Israel
(JTA) — Kesher Israel has hired a successor to Rabbi Barry Freundel, who was arrested 2 1/2 years ago for secretly videotaping women in the mikvah ritual bath of the Washington, D.C., synagogue, and is now in prison.
Rabbi Hyim Shafner, a congregational rabbi in St. Louis since 2004, will serve as the senior rabbi of the modern Orthodox congregation in the Georgetown section of the nation’s capital. Rabbi Avidan Milevsky has been serving on an interim basis since July 2015.
In a letter to the congregation, Kesher Israel President Elanit Jakabovics described Shafner as “humble, genuine, spiritual, and healing,” as well as “sensitive to the needs of his community and thoughtful in his approach.”
Prior to his St. Louis experience, Shafner served eight years as the campus rabbi at the Hillel of Washington University in that city. He and his wife, Sara Winkelman, spent a year working with the Jews of India, where he served as a community rabbi for the Jews of Mumbai.
Freundel, 64, was arrested in October 2014, and began serving a 6 1/2-year sentence in May 2015 after pleading guilty to 52 counts of voyeurism.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
