Elaborate Scheme: Rabbi Michael Broyde is one of the leading figures in Modern Orthodoxy. After first denying, he now admits to creating a fake identity to nettle a rival rabbinical group for years. Image by youtube/emory u.

By Josh Nathan-Kazis April 12, 2013

Leading Modern Orthodox legal expert Rabbi Michael Broyde has apologized for infiltrating a rival Modern Orthodox rabbinic organization under a fake name, just an hour after The Jewish Channel posted an exposé revealing Broyde’s extensive use of the false identity.

Broyde is a judge on the Beth Din of America, the leading Modern Orthodox rabbinical court in the United States. He is also a professor of law at Emory University and was reportedly among the finalists under consideration to serve as Chief Rabbi of Britain.

Since the mid-1990s, Broyde has written widely under the name Rabbi Hershel Goldwasser, according to The Jewish Channel’s story. Using the Goldwasser pseudonym, Broyde joined the International Rabbinical Fellowship, an upstart Modern Orthodox rabbinical association founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Marc Angel as a liberal alternative to the Rabbinical Council of America. That gave Broyde access to an internal listserv accessible only to IRF members.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

According to The Jewish Channel, Broyde took strongly critical positions against the IRF, often using information that he appears to have gleaned from the private e-mail list. Broyde is a member of the RCA, and the rabbinical court on which he sits has strong ties to the historic Modern Orthodox rabbinical organization.

Fights between the IRF and RCA have been contentious and controversial. The two groups differ over key issues like conversion and the role of women in religious leadership.

Broyde initially denied infiltrating the IRF. When confronted by The Jewish Channel, he insisted that Goldwasser was a real person he knew from childhood. Yet an hour after The Jewish Channel posted his story, Broyde contacted a past president of the IRF to apologize for using a fake name to listen in on the group’s internal e-mails.

“I realize that being an IRF member through a pseudonym was inappropriate,” Broyde wrote, according to a copy of the email posted by The Jewish Channel. “I am sorry. Please understand that no malice was intended and my participation was not intended to interfere with the growth or success of the IRF.”

The IRF was not the only target of Broyde’s ruse. According to The Jewish Channel, the legal expert wrote widely as Goldwasser — often using the character to praise himself.

“He was diligent and smart and he tried harder than anyone I have ever met,” The Jewish Channel reported that Broyde wrote of himself while posing as Goldwasser.

In his email to the president of the IRF, Broyde wrote that he would also issue a public apology. That statement has not yet appeared.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

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 polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount