Sex Offender Inherits Dad’s Job; Now a Rabbi 1

From rapist to rabbi in one easy step.

Ex-convicts are usually sent to post-imprisonment rehabilitation programs, but in Israel such a person has immediately attained a high position. Yaakov Yitzhak Rata, who was convicted of [child] rape and sentenced to 16 years at the Maasiyahu Prison’s religious wing, was released from jail last week only to become a rebbe – a position he inherited from his father, who died during [the son’s] imprisonment. …

Haredi website Kikar Hashabat reported about “great joy in the Hasidic movement” when “the righteous rabbi, Yaakov Yitzhak Rata, was released from a 16-year imprisonment.”

What gives this story a special flavor, however, is that the people with the clearest sense of how positively dippy Rata’s appointment is turn out to be the assorted criminals who were his prison homies.

Ex-convicts who served with Rata in prison were surprised to learn about the position waiting for him outside. “How can it be that a person who served a prison sentence for sex offenses is now appointed as a rebbe?” one of them wondered. “It’s amazing to discover how cheap this job can be.”

When the sense of propriety of robbers and rapists is head and shoulders above that of pious believers, I’d say the latter have a little re-evaluating to do.

[image via Failed Messiah]