Enough is Enough — Part IV

So what has Rosenblatt been doing with his time since he parted from the Riverdale Jewish Center? All materials below come from publicly available sources.

The first public airing concerning Rosenblatt’s activities with teenage boys and young men was printed by the New York Times on 5/29/15. He maintained his rabbinic position until his resignation was announced by the Riverdale Jewish Center on 2/24/16, an astonishing eight months later and his exit was characterized as his personal decision to step aside.

Being still of working age, it was a reasonable assumption that he would look for some other position. As I have said elsewhere, if he were to have become an accountant or a bee keeper, no one could quarrel with his decision.

However, by May 2016, there was a link up on the internet announcing his employment at Scarsdale Integrative Medicine (please note that the link is no longer active). His webpage is below:

Meyer Koplow, his lawyer, made the following statements about this new employment to the Riverdale Press of June 30, 2016:

“Mr. Koplow said Rabbi Rosenblatt’s reputation for pastoral counseling also played a role in his being offered the job. “

“According to Mr. Koplow, all ordained clergy members are also certified to offer spiritual counseling, and Scarsdale Integrative Medicine was aware of the controversy surrounding Rabbi Rosenblatt. “

“At one of the hospices where he worked, he did a lot of work with one of the doctors in [Scarsdale Integrative Medicine), When that doctor became aware that the rabbi was free of his responsibilities at the RJC, he reached out to the rabbi to ask whether he would be interested in doing counseling in this group practice he has.”

And finally, “It’s generally well-known that the rabbi has developed a reputation over the years for what some people call extraordinary pastoral skills and helping people through difficult situations,” Mr. Koplow said. “He has decided to focus his efforts going forward on being able to continue that aspect of his work.”

The most misleading part of this internet advertising was the fact that Rosenblatt’s webpage was a stand-alone. While using the Scarsdale Integrative Medicine domain name in his web link, you could neither access the medical practice from his webpage nor could you find his webpage from the main directory. This makes the Forward article of 8/11/16 believable when they wrote that the only thing Scarsdale Integrative Medicine did was rent him space, they did not recruit him nor did they add him to their practice because of his reputed outstanding abilities.

Rosenblatt’s website for Scarsdale Integrative Medicine

Numerous people sent e-mails and called Scarsdale Integrative Medicine to register their protests against offering Rosenblatt the professional cover to interact with a vulnerable population. According to Su Y. Heo, neither the facts put forward in Rosenblatt’s webpage nor those transmitted to the public through his lawyer, were true. Their entire involvement was only granting him a sublet and within a month Rosenblatt was no longer subleasing from Scarsdale Integrative Medicine.

But Rosenblatt’s first foray into a troubling direction, clearly and openly trying to create another avenue to ingratiate himself with a vulnerable population, is not the end of the story.