The Washington Post has an article today about a new report from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee about tax-exempt organizations that inappropriately helped Jack Abramoff launder funds. According to the article, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an Abramoff buddy, Mel Gibson backer and proponent of increased political cooperation between conservative Jews and Christians, told Senators that he plans to shutdown his organization, Toward Tradition. Lapin reportedly blamed the bad press from the Abramoff scandal.

UPDATE: In case it wasn’t clear, Toward Tradition was one of the organizations dealt with in the new report.

UPDATED UPDATE: The reference to Toward Tradition closing its doors has been removed from the Washington Post story, not sure why.

UPDATED UPDATED UPDATE: The report does in fact state that Rabbi Lapin did inform the committee that Toward Tradition was taking legal steps to close its doors.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT