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Rabbi J. Hershy Worch

He emails me from Chicago September 25, 2006:

Rosh Hashana 5767 - Sept '06

(Deut 30:1) It shall happen, when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you will take them to heart...

What needs to be taken to heart is that the curse also contains some blessing. (The Rebbe of Izbicy 1801-1859)

Dear Reader,

Two years ago I was accused in the media, anonymously, of criminal and contemptible offenses. Most specifically that I use cult-like and manipulative, mind controlling behaviors to entice women to my home where I assault them. The attack was an outright slander, a lie without one iota of truth in it.

The accusation was embellished with details of my private, work and public life, added to make the allegation sound more believable. Since 1985 I have published work, mostly poetry and short stories using pen names, Moonish and Chapt Schleck. And it was under these names that I maintained and moderated a number of websites and bulletin boards specifically for Orthodox Jews on the farthest fringes of the community. One such website was "Kinky-Shiduchin", a place for Orthodox Jews with particular and peculiar needs to find their match in a safe, anonymous environment. Much of the writing published under the name Moonish is provocative, loud, erotic, iconoclastic and most certainly not the sort of writing I could publish under my own name as an Orthodox man without radical consequences. That fact alone was used to attribute to me all sorts of scurrilous, offensive and nasty material I never wrote, as well as selectively quoted fragments from my writings all brought to prove my violent and predatory nature.

I don't have a violent or predatory nature. The purpose of the libel was to hurt me; to damage my reputation and ruin my career. It largely succeeded; these past two years have been very trying and disheartening. Whoever spoke up for me or attempted to show how the accusations might not be true was attacked, ridiculed and defamed. Doors once open were closed to me. In the age of Google, one has only to do a cursory internet search of my name to be overwhelmed with evidence of its savage efficacy.

Finding the blessing hidden in this curse is a great challenge. When every indiscretion and misdeed I may have committed since childhood is trumpeted and broadcast in the media and no area of my life remains private, where is the blessing? There is certainly no shortage of sins with which to castigate me, and I provided most of the ammunition being used against me now.

Divorce is often a process bringing out the best and worst in people, at times in acrimony and bitterness. There are marriages and relationships which ended with my having to make difficult and painful amends. But no one to whom I have apologized has ever accused me of malice, violence or cruelty.

If there remains anyone who feels I have not addressed their grievance, please seek me out and confront me with my wrongdoing. If it was a criminal act, report me to the police. Accuse me to my face. Don't attack me anonymously, using depraved people and shameless websites to take revenge.

If there is a blessing in the curse it may be twofold. First I'm grateful for all the people who have been directed to me only because of the notoriety surrounding my name, and second, for the friendships and loves which have stood the test of time and in having endured trouble are grown stronger. But, if being or becoming the blessing requires that I say it was all worth it, I'm afraid I'm far from being there yet.

I won't mar this page with the names of my tormentors, you know who you are. I bless you with all the good things a good life enjoys in abundance. May this High Holiday festival season be one of joy and healing wherever and however you celebrate them. Undo as much of the damage and remove the causes of as much of my pain as you possibly can, please.

From associates, friends and those around me who have suffered because of me, because of this and other things which have brought disgrace upon me, from you I ask forgiveness in the deepest contrition.

J. Hershy Worch
Chicago

A picture of rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch at the Adams Street Shul in Newton, Massachusetts. Another picture. R. Worch with Live Journal user AnotherJen (Jennifer Hunter) on his right Jennifer Hunter, the author of three books on witchcraft. Here's a 1995 self-portrait Rabbi Worch painted.

Chicago Orthodox rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch has numerous friends who say he's a righteous rabbi. Some say he's the only rabbi who understands them.

Others (almost all either ex-lovers of Worch's or those influenced by Worch's ex-lovers) say rabbi Worch is a sexual predator.

Almost all the negative information I received about Worch came from ex-lovers, two in particular.

Rabbi Worch has six adult children from his first marriage and three young children from his second marriage. Both ended in divorce. On November 11, 2004, rabbi Worch lost custody of his three young children.

Some women who've known R. Worch intimately allege that he uses kabbalah, hypno-eroticism and other manipulation techniques to have sex with women and to take their money.

Though he is into the BDSM (bondage - domination - sadism - masochism) scene, he principally seeks out (say critics of his) those who are not into BDSM and are therefore more susceptible to his influence and less likely to understand healthy boundaries.

I got this note December 6, 2004 (from a group of men and women in Melbourne Australia who prefer to remain anonymous) regarding rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch:

Hershy Worch came to Melbourne, Australia with his wife and young family in 1995. He was initially employed by the Hillel Foundation. As rabbi of the Hamakom Synagogue, he was then financially supported by members of his community from the years 1995-1997.

During this time both his behaviour and demeanour with his female students were consistently predatory, manipulative and abusive. He proactively sought 'romantic' and sexual relationships wtih many many women, specifically targeting those who were emotionally vulnerable and fostering acute dependency. He consistently used his role as counselor to make sexual advances towards those who came to him in need. He had 'romantic' sexual relationships with married and unmarried women who ranged in age from 20 to 50.

His inappropriate behaviour towards female students included:
Physical sexual interactions
Predatory behavior in the pursuit of women: e.g. late night phone calls and invitations to teach women privately.
Using the teaching of Torah as a tool of seduction.
Using group situations with himself at the centre - that utilized his musical, vocal and narrative 'talents' - to manipulate individuals and create a cultic environment around 'Kabbalah' classes.
Using his relationships with students to influence them to 'rescue' him by financially and publically supporting and defending him.

His abuse of his position as rabbi, chazzan and counselor traumatized this community leaving wounds that took and are still taking many years to heal. Reputations were publicly compromised and personal lives were taken over.

Those who have followed his career since he left Australia and returned to the United States have observed a repetition of these patterns. We trust that with our testimony and others you will do everything within your power to expose Hershy Worch and warn individuals and communities who may be vulnerable to his 'teachings' and promises of insight and enlightenment.

A woman who says she was abused by Worch writes to Protocols December 8, 2004 under the name "Amy Diamond" (I got verification that this woman and her complaints are real):

After all is said and done, it is not a matter of whether women are reluctant to sacrifice their anonymity to expose Worch. It is not a matter of whether their evidence would stand up in a US court of law (particularly as Worch has perpetrated his execrable acts in numerous places not under US jurisdiction). All this is irrelevant. The one who is defending him with such energetic outrage is missing the point completely. All these allegations are not from 1.5 women. I know you couldn't possibly believe something so asinine. They are from real communities and real people in pain. There were young male students whose souls Worch invaded too, and who, when they found out about his activities with women felt betrayed, broken and disillusioned. Lives of men and women were shattered; Judaism suffered; Torah was desecrated. I suspect there are rabbis turning in their graves when they hear of Worch's activities. You who defend him, methinks you protest too loud. Moreover, you seem to be unaware of the most basic tenet of how abusive relationships are assessed by disinterested third parties in the fields of jurisprudence, peychology/psychiatry and social work. When one party is in a position of power and uses that power with moral questionability, the relationship is never "consensual", regardless of age. It is considered ipso facto abusive. And please consider old Anglo proverb: where there's smoke there's fire. Or old Yiddish proverb: when one man tells you you're drunk, ignore him; when two tell you, lie down. There are many, many more than two people telling Worch he has hurt a great number of people with his cynical manipulation of their intellect, their neshama and their heart. What he has done, time and time again is a wickedness and a descration. Who will be brave enough to shut him down and to take all those still so deluded that they defend him, to be de-culted and demystified? I wish I were brave enough. Perhaps one day I will be.

Jeremy Hershy Worch was born in Manchester, England, on May 20, 1954. He was ordained by R. Shlomo Carlebach in 1992. (One report says Carlebach gave Worch semicha (ordination) so that Worch would have a way to make a living.)

Rabbi Worch has gone through the 12-step program for drug and alcohol abuse and he has the lingo down pat (see, for example, his 2004 book The Kabbalist Haggadah). Twelve-step programs are a great way to get laid. Many people substitute sex addiction for drug and alcohol addiction.

Here is the complete Acknowledgement page from The Kabbalist Haggadah:

Rabbi Chaim Tzvi and Rebbetzin Gittle Goldzweig (something written in Hebrew here..)

My brother, Reb Shimon Worch most ardent supporter, gentlest of critics.

My loving friend, Rabbi Julian Ungar M.D. and his awe-inspiring family who restore my soul from time to time. Yori, Nancy, and Yarden Yanover remind me each year that Passover is coming.

Rabbi Ayla Grafstein, her family and Ruach Hamidbar who made this book a reality.

Alan J. Goldberg makes space for miracles to happen.

Rahmiel Drizin and Debbie Miller read the manuscript, providing invaluable suggestions. True friends like these are everyday miracles.

Davka Corp generously allowed me to use their Hebrew text.

Reb Zalman always seems to know intuitively when I most need encouragement.

Student/Rabbi Marc in Miami; Rahmiel and Tamar in Oak Park; Rabbis Menachem and Wendy in Rogers Park; Tzvi, Devorah, David and Liorah in Newton, MA; Rena, T'filla and Simcha, friends for life. and Rebecca Mueller who lives Truth.

5/5/05

Banned In Turkey?

From JewishWhistleBlower:

JWB has learned exclusively that Rabbi J. Hershy Worch has been banned by local Turkish religious authorities from taking any pulpit.

He even fled the US for Turkey rather than show up at custody hearings regarding his own children.

Rabbi (Jeremy) Hershy Worch of course is Moonish Lunar who posts stories about graphically sexually assaulting and murdering people on the internet. I would caution readers, these are horrible pornograpic stories.

1) Webpage that has Lunar Moonish's phone number.

2) A Google search which confirms the ownership of that phone number (Worch's number before he fled to Turkey and not show up at child custody hearings and ignore his support obligations).

3) An archive of several such stories posted about graphically sexually assaulting and murdering people.

Jeuness Miller confirms that Rabbi Worch is Moonish in this 7/10/05 email to Rabbi Worch's friend Yori Yanover at USAJewish.com:

Please remove my name, email and the confidential survey (that I own) conducted for my book from your website. I want nothing to do with this controversy as I am not involved in this issue. I also have serious concerns as to how you came to posses the private age-play survey that you show on your site. I stopped conducting the survey when one participant told me that the survey contained a virus. No virus was found but I decided to wait until I could be certain. None of the surveys were ever publicized and were eventually purged from my personal computer, as the surveys are confidential between the participants and myself and my research may be jeopardized. I new Rabbi Worsh as briefly as moonish on live journal and he had his friend fill out the survey for me. I never met either party, new the story or took sides and do not wish to be involved in anyway. I will have my computer inspected and if it shows signs of hacking I will approach the appropriate authorities. If not, I will assume that you got the survey from either of the two parties involved and still wish it removed as the publication of my name, email and survey may jeopardize further research.
 

11/22/04

Things must be going poorly for Rabbi Worch in his custody dispute with his second ex-wife.

A source writes:

Worch has problems making his child support but somehow managed to fly off to Istanbul, Turkey, August 11-23 (2004) to have sex with one of his online "slaves". He wrote to his OBDSM (Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Discipline-Sado-Masochism) Yahoo group from an internet cafe in Istanbul, asking if anyone knew where he could purchase a particular kind of bondage device, and bragging about being "all shagged out."

R. Hershy Worch and R. Mordecai Gafni have a Carlebach connection in common. Gafni is theoretically working on his dissertation on the Izbicer Rebbe. Worch gives classes on the Izbicer rebbe.

They likely got this interest in the Izbicer rebbe from rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

If you put "Sacred Fire" into Google, you get results from all sorts of occultic and S-M sites.

Worch helped translate the book Sacred Fire: Torah from the Years of Fury 1939-1942.

Here's a press release from The Awareness Center, which fights sex abuse in Jewish life:

Serious allegations made against a Rabbi in Chicago

By Vicki Polin

The Awareness Center - October 14, 2004

Dear Friends:

There have been some serious allegations made regarding a rabbi who resides in (West Rogers Park) Chicago, IL. The alleged offender originally meets his victims on line, and then after time connects with them in person. The allegations that have been made include the rabbi using a form of hypnosis and then sexually assaulting his alleged victims.

If you or anyone you or anyone you know has been victimized by this man, please call the Chicago Rape Crisis Hotline and let them know your story. Tell them that The Awareness Center suggested you call. The Rape Crisis Hotline is being made aware of the situation and are extremely sensitive to the issues that are involved in this case.

The Chicago Rape Crisis Hotline's phone number is: 1(888) 293-2080.

Sincerely, Vicki Polin, MA, ATR, LCPC Executive Director - The Awareness Center

I am in touch with people (one woman in particular, "Schnookele," who had a relationship with him for several months before breaking it off) who describe harrowing experiences with Rabbi Hershy Worch.

Rabbi J. Hershy Worch writes in his Nov. l3, 2004 lesson in Kabbalah_101: "When we shoot off, we are shooting off our thoughts. If you can't control your tongue you can't control your sexuality."

"Schnookele" writes to him through me:

You should have thought about that before engaging in a meditative state, describing melting my body, carrying around my decapitated head to kiss and f**k, sticking your penis up my cut-off neck. Who needs to control their tongue/sexuality?

Get help. Your own behaviors have "broken the covenants of intimacy." Your own rule of "no physical, spiritual, or mental harm," you just could not resist breaking.

Get help. All the pretty-written words are not going to save you or hide you forever. Get help.

"Love and Pain, Schnookele"

This same woman writes 11/15/04:

This letter is for all those other women who've been sexually manipulated/abused by J. Hershy Worch---to help you cast off any lingering fear and shame you may have. I too was once crippled by fear and shame.

These are some of his dirty little insurance policies he's relied on to keep us in silence and shame:

1. Fear of others asking 'what kind of woman gets romantically/sexually involved with a rabbi?'
--Don't worry about this one. Our stories/experiences may vary, but his manipulations and techniques have a theme and are similar. More on this later.

2. Fear of being laughed at: 'Torah of Desire'? Hypnoeroticism? BDSM Kabballah?? As 'a woman' left in a comment, 'what kind of group psychosis are you all in?' This one is comical---we know we escaped *his* psychosis when we broke off from him. If his own writings aren't making anyone scratch their heads in bewilderment yet---his sexual-dismemberment fantasy in a Kentucky meat plant should have done it by now---then we should be wondering about the defective mental states of his supporters!

3. Fear of scorn over our 'mental states': Every woman who's had romantic/sexual involvement with him in REAL TIME has had to undergo therapy of one form or another after breaking with him, including his exes, including myself. No shame in that. Ignore those online women who have never had real-time/real-life involvements with him like we have. They're just phone/internet sex fantasies who haven't been 'blessed' with the real-time 'experience' of the rabbi. Not to mention they are probably in a panic at the possibility of his being too stressed to attend to their 'timed orgasms'.
I'm actually honored to be included among so many smart women who were strong enough to seek therapy in order to help break free from his cruelty and abuse.
No more shame here.

4. Fear of the world saying 'what kind of woman gets involved in kinky sex with a rabbi?': Know this: I came across three letters from previous women/'slaves' of his who all stated the same thing in various forms:
"Gee I never realized I was into BDSM until I met Hershy," (including myself.) When I thought I was losing my mind and had nowhere to turn, it was people from online communities and locally involved in BDSM who startled me awake that what he was doing was abusive and manipulative, was NOT SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual). If it was clear as day to so many people in the BDSM world that his behaviors were abusive and manipulative, then what does that say about everyone else supporting him? Talk about 'Group psychosis!' Shame on them----no shame on us.

5. Shame over things he had us write to him, about our desires and fantasies: Well, did you know that he uses intimate/erotic things we have written to him -- to use to send to other women to seduce them with? Our own writings as tools to seduce others with! (Talk about lazy...) There's no shame in having once believed we were in love with him, once believing he could 'teach' us things about our own 'sexual powers' via his Kabbalah and 'meditations', 'opening' us up to his 'Torah of Desire'. Did he make you feel 'special' too, stating he'd been waiting for ages for
"a gifted student who really understands" his Torah? He probably tells all women this. Well, we were naive then, we know better now. No shame.

6. Fear of accusations of lashon hara:
--Oh please. We're talking about a spiritual and ethical necessity to warn others about a sick and dangerous man abusing women and using G-d, Judaism, and his Rabbi title to do so. I may not know Torah yet, but I'm fairly certain Hashem is ticked off over someone using His name and Judaism to abuse and manipulate women.
My conscience will not allow me to remain silent.
And I never would have been able to speak up in the first place if I hadn't been made aware of the sheer numbers of you who have survived his abuse prior to mine. For the record I did attempt in writing -- on and off for nearly three months after I broke up with him, to get him to own up to, recognize and apologize for how he'd hurt me. Never happened. All my fault, all 'fears' in my own 'head', all my 'inability to handle' his great 'powers'. (*rolls eyes*)

Lashon hara? No, a 'major mitzvah'. And I was told that due to the limited abilities of any overseeing rabbinical authorities---that media exposure is indeed a good thing. The Rabbis who told me this apparently don't consider it lashon hara....Don't take my word for it, either. Call them up and ask them for yourselves.

In case any of you have been following the other rabbi abuse cases and are fearful about instances of being shunned and disbelieved, let me state this: None of the three Rabbis I have spoken with over the phone scoffed at me or made me feel ashamed at all. And I was NOT the first to have filed complaints on him. Rabbi Mark Dratch of the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Josef Blau, Director of Religious Guidance, at Yeshiva University, New York and on the Board of Directors for the Awareness Center, Rabbi Josef Ozarowski of the Chicago Rabbinical Council -- all have been nothing but empathetic, kind, supportive. I encourage you to speak with them--they are *real* Rabbis, after all--- as well as with Vicki Polin, and Lynn Johnson of the Chicago YWCA Women's Crisis Center, in contact with the Cook County Prosecutor's Office.

Also, there is an attorney long experienced in these type of cases who has been aware of Worch cases for quite some time. He is very interested in hearing from you---and it does not matter that you are outside the Chicago Illinois jurisdiction, either. Write Luke and get his number and have a chat with him yourself. Quite illuminating.

J. Hershy Worch stated long ago that he longed to be "revealed". He thinks if all the truth about him comes out into the open, it makes it honest, makes it okay. Unfortunately, because he's hurt so many women, it does not make it "okay".

Here's his opportunity, his wish has come true. He may be crying out of one side of his mouth to his friends, I'm sure it helps him feed off their sympathies and wallets.

Here's his opportunity to finally face himself and get whatever psychiatric help it is he needs, make amends, and stop living this destructive chaotic mess of a life he lives and hurting so many women.

You and I know we are doing J. Hershy Worch the biggest favor of his life. And somewhere deep down, he knows it as well.

You own your story/experience of him. Cast off lingering fears and shame about his manipulations -- take back your power you once heaped on him. My knowing of your existence/similar experiences has done wonders to reduce my lingering shame, and helped give me courage. I couldn't be at this point, writing this, if I didn't know of your existence/similar experiences.

As another woman wrote more eloquently than I could regarding his kind of predatory and abusive behavior:
"Don't think for one moment that I can't see you for what you are. Even in your most clever and convincing moments, it's impossible for me to ignore the carnage that you've left behind -- its stench is all over you. I have fallen for some of your tricks, but I will not feel shame. Furthermore, I've gathered up some of the victims that came before and after me, and I will not let them feel it either."

Now this, my friends---not allowing each other to feel any further fear and shame --is a *genuine* 'power exchange.'

Here's Rabbi Worch at Young Israel of West Rogers Park.

Here's R. Worch's Yahoo group for Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Domination Sado-Masochism Connection.

His Livejournal "hypnoeroticism" community

His Livejournal "kaballah_101" community

His personal Livejournal

Chicago Orthodox rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch posts to OBDSM, The Orthodox-Jewish-Bondage-Domination-Sado-Masochism Connection:

From:Chapt-Schleck obdsm@world.net
Date: Fri. Feb 2, 2001 7:18 a.m.
Subject: Epiphanic question time

Y'know Y'All,

I'm sitting here in my hotel room in Dryhump, Kentucky, the day is ove, Let's say I'm a Mashglach for the Star-K or something like that, It's "Yes, Rabbi" this, and "No, Rabbi" that all day long.

His name is Brian, a reddish blonde Shaygetz of the most impossibly alluring sort. Do you know what kind of world it is out there in the interior of America? Do you know how invisible the Jewish World has become since I got into my car at the beginning of the week and drove west by south?

Here I am asked, whyt are the Israelis and Palestinians fighting each other for God's sake, they're all Jews over there aren't they? I tell him, No, Israelis and Palestinians are not the same, one is Jew the other Arab. But I can see he remains perplexed. Small difference, he mutters. I know for certain that there is not one person in a hundred in this factory who can find Israel on a map of the world.

But back to Brian. He is dressed in starched whites like all workers in this super-sterile environment. Food-grade sterile. My kinda whites, almost transparent, almost fluorescent, I can see the individual vertabrae rippling through his jacket back, almost read the label on his underpants. "Hi Brian," I say. "Oh Rabbi you remembered my name." He smiles and I can smell the feel of the stubble on his cheeks, red and gold.

I want to lock him into one of the two hundred huge stainless steel hoppers which feed whatever it is that gets manufactured here in this plant. I want to hear him beg me to let him out, I want control. I'm thinking to myself, I might cause an international incident if I were to do any one of the mulitiplicity of violent and kinkily sexual scenarios I have in mind even moderate justice in this sleepy hillbilly town.

I did not take my plastic Star-K numbered sealing tags and bind his wrists to the pipes in the boiler room so that I might rape his mouth. I did not clamp his nipples with the small electrical clips or the ring widgets or the abrasive tape or the rubber compound coating sealant or the other accoutrements of torture available to Rabbis in strange places. I kashered the inlet nozzles and stuck my seals on bags of feedstuffs for export to Israel. No dismembered 22 year old shaygetz with a smile on his face and strange metal objects in his rectum found his way into my sealed cartons. No food grade quality control Paqid in the Holy Land need fear encountering my gory leftovers next week in Holon or Metullah.

But I cannot still the question asking itself over and over in my mind. What are you going to do, Schleck, with your double triple quadruple identity crisis?

When you giv eyour little D'var Torah'le before Musaf, Schleck, are you going to mention that you yourself, like personally, like deep down where you know yourself, would have been among those who preferred to remain in Egypt than leave to be given a code of living in the wilderness that includes such gems as "Thou shalt not commit adultery"? Or the ban against taking a woman and her sister or a woman and her daughter? Should I mention it in passing this Shabbat?

Should I mention that I have a slave? That I hurt her passionately. Hurt? I torture her quite deliberately. Her name is J and she too is a member of this OBDSM list. I'm the one who brought her to massive orgasms with my savage crocodile clips. Should I mention it in passing at the end of the d'rosha?

When Aish-Hatorah puts me up on their website and Links their page to mine for the downloadable Torahs, what would happen if I linked it to my erotic mind-control stories? D'you think the discerning reader would make the connection between my penchant for erotic mind-control and my theosophistical theories about worshipping God, power exchange, 24/7 humiliation and bondage scenes and real abandonment of the self and the will to God my Higher Power?

Neh! It'll never happen......

Somewhere in all this there has to be a Rav I can ask, a rosh yeshiva I can talk it all through with. And don't you go telling me that I'm it. I want a real rabbi, one who's never put his hand below his belt in his lifetime, who's never masturbated or fantasized about his wife's sister or thought about going into the Ladies Shul and taking his pick. I want a rabbi who never went into the dirty washing hamper and tried rubbing his scrotum with his sister's satiny bra and pants when he was twelve years old, who never peeped and wished and dreamed and longed.

I guess I won't find her on this list.

Love and Pain,
Schleck

Worch writes Nov 19, 2004: "I know where all the dismembered bodies went. I pulled out the veggie and crisper drawers from the bottom of my refrigerator. Eeeeewww!"

A source writes: "If J.Hershy Worch knew he had to let go of the Rabbi role in 2002, then why is he still using the title? Is he stating that he did cause "cosmic damage and irreparable harm" to people?"

Chapt.Schleck aka J. Hershy Worch writes to his OBDSM (Orthodox Jewish Bondage-Discipline-Sado-Masochism) list in May of 2002:

Confusing is my own behavior, my desire versus my need, my role as spiritual guide versus role playing in power exchange games.

As you must know, as everyone knows, when you bring desire for power, control and the need-to-be-seen into your work space you can cause cosmic damage and irreparable harm to people, people who trust you to heal and not hurt them.

I have been forced to let go of the Rabbi role to give me space to explore the Dominant Sadist. I've swapped careers to avoid those spiritual guide dichotomies and avoid harming patients, flock, congregation or clients.

My soul is wounded and alarmed and in shock, where did the Rabbi go? My soul is screaming, Hey I never signed on for the trip with a sex fiend a kinkster a pervert. A man who can take pleasure in causing pain, humiliation and slavery.

Confusing.

Worch writes in his Livejournal as Moonish in July 2003:

4:02p pickin' threads

As a Jew I'm tuned into serving God who's the Ultimate Jealous Dom. Actually, jealous doesn't even begin to do it justice. Let's just say making eyes at another will earn me more than some severe edge play or unscheduled dungeon time. When He makes me eat shit, I first have to line up all the little metaphorical turds to spell the words "this is for my own good".

But I am so highly sensitive to combinations of human sexual possibilities that no matter how Jewish and worshipful I may be feeling about God at any given moment, dangle some sexual bait in front of me and God can go hang. If there's a person I fancy or would like to impress in Shul, God is gonna have to shout pretty loud to be heard over the noise of my heartbeat. One finely turned ankle, a whiff of perfume or the whisper of silk/nylon susurration and Anim Zemirot is just background muzak.

Nomesayn?

I have yet to find the page of Talmud can hold my attention like the erotic mind-control stories webpage. Add to all this the thrill I get from dominating, humiliating, castigating and controlling someone sexually, making the sexual domination filter through every possible permutation of mundane activity, Ahh...

When did God last get my juices flowing like this? I bet He's pissed as all get-out. Yikes!

2003-08-29 17:16

Ever since childhood, the only purpose to which I have considered putting 'rules' is so as to have something to break, or, preferably, shatter, smash, rend, sunder or destroy. Ignoring the rules has never really seemed sufficient, you know.

Hasidism is almost defined by the copiousness of its rules of thought, attitude, speech and behavior. I was perceived as ultra chutzpadik, whereas I just thought myself misunderstood and victimised.

The dean of the Sunderland Yeshivah (#2) once asked me what I had done so bad in the yeshivah in London (#1) to cause the dean of the Manchester Yeshivah (pre #1) to advise a young scholar to avoid Sunderland because I was there? Which only happened a year and a half before he, the dean at Sunderland wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation to the dean of the Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel (#3) in a successful bid to transfer me hither.

The one I wrote about yesterday, Gateshead Yeshiva (#4) came later.

My favorite phrase was, "But you don't understand."

Theirs was invariably, "Oh, but we do, we really do."

From: "just Sir will do..."
Date: July 27, 2001 4:14 pm
Subject: Sex and the Churban Beit HaMikdash

...[W]ith the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem approxmiately 1930 years ago our Jewish joy in sex was withdrawn, reduced or otherwise interfered with. That somehow, having access to the temple also gave us access to our profoundest most joyous sexuality as well. The implication is that there is a Jewish way of f------ [dashes inserted by LF for original profanity] just as there is a Jewish way of dressing, praying, worshipping and eating etc. Now it's gone and we are reduced to imitating the Goyim.

If the temple will be rebuilt in the merit of our fervid f------, I have definitely done my bit. If it is going to require modesty and restraint, I hope they are not waiting on me. Remember children, sperm is holy so don't waste it, swallow.

Do it Jewish. May your moon shine, red and smart. Whip him with his Tzitzith and tie him to the chair with his T'fillin straps. Beat her with her leather shoes and gag her with Bedikah cloths.

Have Milchig and Fleishig sex without waiting six hours and eat it without making a proper Bracha.

.......

From: "just Sir will do.."
Date: 03 May 2004
Subject: I'm still not used to the idea that...

...one may go straight from Shabbes Havdala to a BDSM party; to tell my bitch to take her clothes off in a gathering of nearly a hundred people; and then thrash her soundly, and do the same to another one who just happened to need it too, you know, just for the sake of the mitzvah...

It's too much, isn't it?

Oh, but what a thrill. To feel her body juddering and shuddering in the aftershocks of her screams and seizure-like spasm of pain/pleasure. It's such a power rush to the heart and genitals, can you blame me for loving it?

We Jews who take pleasure in pain, in our own and that of others, know the taste of paganism, for its power is akin to worship, the seductive allure to that of the most unholy dread. At that moment my slave bows to worship me, to prostrate herself abject in pleasure and terror, I am acting god. It's heady wine we drink who get high on the fizz of sexandpain, of pleasureandshame. When I humiliate a grown woman in public and see her writhe in unfettered slavery, when the blood crackles like a bushfire with the heat and accelereant of lustpower, when I thrill huge with the force of all her surrenders not so long a jump to proclaiming myself a deity, to her, to me.

And the Shabbes queen abandoned with the havdala candle and the incense box and the half drunk grape juice.

And on Sunday morning, the deep satisfaction hearing her wince as she sits on the toilet seat. Those weals from where I hit her with the wooden spoon, she'll be feeling those a few days yet...

.........

From: "just Sir will do..."
Date: Aug 1, 2003
Subject: Notice of Sale of Slave
To: OBDSM Connection

In my capacity as immoderator, dungeon-meister, Rosh Yeshiva and Av Beth-Din at OBDSM, I have been engaged to oversee the sale and settlement of the slave woman known as SHIFCHA-ISHA.

The slave, an orthodox, Jewish woman in her mid twenties, of Sefaradi family, without children or encumberance will be available for viewing from August 15th 2003.

Properly trained and with a natural proclivity for abject slavery, SHIFCHA-ISHA has been preparing herself to a life of submission and slavery for some considerable time. Her training and mentoring has been in formal Leather surroundings with emphasis on discipline, compliance, correction, humility, forebearance, patience and obedience. Her demeanor is bright, friendly, quickwitted, humorous and engaging. She is well educated, and thoughtful, and has graduated with a Bachelors of Science.

With extreme masochistic tendencies and high tolerance for both pain and humiliation, she is comfortable in most controntive and demanding situations.

Rabbi Worch's online personas include "Moonish," "Chapt Schleck"/"The Chief" and Just_Sir_will_do.

Worch writes in his Moonish mode on the Livejournal male_dom July 25, 2003:

I'm intoxicated by power and control, I'm a hunter in rabbit's clothing, I get off making a woman squirm, itch, chafe, prickle, throb, ache and howl. Personally I find a woman with damp undies something of a turn on if she was trying her best to keep them dry but was overruled solely by my will.

Don't you?

This week, the library scene actually went like this. After two hours of intense deep trance work...I told her to get on with her day, go to the library, get her research done and have an orgasm at 3:30pm.

J. Hershy Worch writes in his Livejournal Moonish, July 29, 2003:

Well, (X), there are a specific set of women with whom I have played using mind control, hypnosis and suggestion in any substantial form over the years. They are five women to be precise. I maintain amicable, cordial and even occasionally passionate relationships with each of them through time. All, that is, except one who is an ornery critter and has not really shared anything private about herself with me since we parted company. After I in my incontinence, last week, shared my incendiary thoughts about hypnoeroticism with the male_dom group, and since reading ruis's thought provoking responses, I've thought of writing to her and asking whether she was suffering ill effects. But, (X), you know, I'm scared, you how these things can be sometimes, and a man may forgiven for being a sorry, yellow, lillylivered coward occasionally, no?

You say, no?

Actually, there was one suggestion I gave her, and I wonder on a daily basis how she deals with it.

.........

'Sbeen a thoughtful weekend. ruis's calm voice really set me to thinking. Have I just been lucky I've never hurt anybody with hypnotism?

I treat it as an adjunct to my other characteristics, I know how to flirt, I know how to sound mysterious, I know how to use my voice as a lever of control.

Then I wonder about the creep factor. You know, there's always the danger one gets caught up in the game and play of power and control one loses sight of the simple menschlichkeiten - the humane, the humble, the teachable, the caring. I know, because I've seen it in others, how one can become a creep simply by spending too much time in one's own head.

Then there's the other more overtly obtrusive, the predator factor. When I get inside someone's head the way I do, what am I? What's the thrill, what's the payoff, what's the charm?

J. Hershy Worch writes under his Livejournal Moonish identity to the Livejournal Male_Dom community, July 31 2003:

Meet the Beast!

How many subs enjoy, look forward even to an encounter with the beast who dwells under the civilized facade of her softly spoken Dom? Looking through some old love letters today I came across this snippet of verbal foreplay. I'm wondering out loud today, on this list, whether any of you find it a turn on? Last week I posted some thoughts on hypnoeroticism which most subs found a big turn-off. I've recovered from the drubbing and would appreciate frank feedback, even brutal frankness has to be better than silence. You know how it is, sometimes a community or list goes so quiet you wonder whether the apocalypse hasn't happened silently while you've been typing at the computer and everyone has disappeared...

Anyway, as I was saying, it was part of a lengthy, ardent and unremarkable correspondence. By the way, a sub informed me lately that I bear a strong resemblance to Hannibal Lechter. I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted at the time. She meant it as a confession she found me a little frightening, but I decided to take it as a compliment anyway. There's no such thing as too much power. It's like bad publicity, right? The bit I wanted to share reads like this:

"Admit your need, in that deepest part of you where the slave speaks to herself, your need to be beaten with a whipping cane 'til you bleed, your need to be whipped on the back and shoulders 'til you cry, your need to be pinched and stabbed and slapped and beaten 'til you scream. Admit the need to have me pull you by the hair 'til you fear it coming out of your head and your need to have me hang you by the neck with the tips of your toes touching the floor, that I need just to begin from there to do the things I need to do with you. And nothing else, nothing less, nothing will do but what I do to you. That's your admission. Now, admit it again...."

J.Hershy Worch, writing as his Livejournal user Moonish, scoffs 8/1/03 at the BDSM rules of SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual):

I got ticketed again on male_dom Everyone's a sex-traffic cop on the inside, sitting in unmarked cars with SSC radar scanners to catch the illegals, the unlicensed, the DWI. I think everyone should have to pass an SSC test before being allowed to have vanilla sex. And then another, more advanced course before being allowed into BDSM, sheeeesh....

Isn't it amazing though how some people are on some sort of automatic-responder-SSC-alert-correctness-quota-counter? Like everyone's a net-nanny. I mean, it brings out the speed-freak, wheel-squealing, prancivating bad-boy in me who never even exised before. It's true though, and something I hadn't really internalized until the shrivelled buddha brought it to my attention, a lot of the people purporting to be "into" male_dom and d/s are barely of the age of consent.

(X), are you still a kid? are you of age yet? Like, have I bin corruptin' yew?

Chapt.Schleck aka J. Hershy Worch writes to his OBDSM (Orthodox Jewish Bondage-Discipline-Sado-Masochism) list in May of 2002:

Confusing is my own behavior, my desire versus my need, my role as spiritual guide versus role playing in power exchange games.

As you must know, as everyone knows, when you bring desire for power, control and the need-to-be-seen into your work space you can cause cosmic damage and irreparable harm to people, people who trust you to heal and not hurt them.

I have been forced to let go of the Rabbi role to give me space to explore the Dominant Sadist. I've swapped careers to avoid those spiritual guide dichotomies and avoid harming patients, flock, congregation or clients.

My soul is wounded and alarmed and in shock, where did the Rabbi go? My soul is screaming, Hey I never signed on for the trip with a sex fiend a kinkster a pervert. A man who can take pleasure in causing pain, humiliation and slavery.

Confusing.

.........

From: Chapt-Schleck
Wed May 1, 2002 11:38 p.m.

Subject: Kinky Shiduchin

The last 24 hours has seen a whole group of individuals join OBDSM. Hey Guys and Gals! Welcome to Y'kom Purkon - the place where it's ok to get it up more than once during davening...

If you are interested in finding a zivug, your own zivug within the world of kinky men and women, this is the place. Real Shiduchin are as difficult and complex as K'riyas YamSuf.

a. It has to be clear to you that only God can help you find your way through the sea to meet your real soulmate.

b. You have to be ready to jump in.

c. It must be a song in your heart you have always known but never sung out loud before.

I'm Chapt Schleck the founder, instigator and immoderator of OBDSM. I'm a grandfather. I have children who are Rabbonim, Talmidei Chachamim, Erenster Youngerleit and all that good stuff. But that doesn't stop me getting a thrill from hurting my bitch and undressing her in front of other perverts and hitting her with sticks and pinching her nipples 'till they bruise.

I treat the Rebbe with deference and respect but that doesn't stop me telling my property to get down on her hands and knees to lick and kiss my shoes after I punish her.

Tonight is the 35th night of the Omer, it's 5 whole weeks, its the Malkhuth of Hod, the most feminine of the beauties. Tonight is the beauty of being given beauty by another.

Tonight is the beauty in the tears of pain running through the mascara from the eyes of my sweet toy as she cries in the pain of the torture of being my sub. Tonight is the beauty of being made beautiful by someone who loves you enough to reveal all their true self to you, no matter how much it hurts.....

You want to know all the Qabalah secrets of BDSM?

First you have to find your zivug. I'm the shadchan, speak to me. Love and pain, Schleck

Rabbi Worch posted to OBDSMC (Orthodox Bondage Domination Sadism Masochism Connection) in 2000:

This is a Torah for all of us, but especially for susie who yearns for her chains. It is based upon the words of Psalm 116:16. We read it in the second half of Hallel after the meal.

Please, O Lord, I am truly thy servant; I am thy
servant, the son of thy
handmaid; Thou has loosened my bonds.

The above is not a particularly infelicitous translation, but almost devoid of real inflection.

Firstly, the Hebrew word EVED does not translate as servant. SHEIRUT is servitude. AVDUT connotes slavery. The difference between the two being more than simply a matter of word-choice - a servant has options, while a slave has none. A servant has ownership of self, while a slave has none. A servant expects some recompense, while a slave expects none. A servant counts time, hours, days, etc. A slave has no future different from the present - time is not a factor worth measuring.

The translation should read.

O please O God, for I am Your slave, I am Your slave,
the son of Your
maidservant.

Now, sweetest Chevrah & Chevrettes allow me to give you over the secret of the second half of the Pasuk-verse.

The Hebrew reads PITACHTA L'MOSEIROY; usually translated as, thou hast loosened my bonds.

Fech!

The Hebrew word PITACHTA can have as its root the word P'TACH meaning 'opening' hence 'loosening'. But, much more interestingly it can have as its root the Hebrew word PITUACH meaning emblazon.

We find the word T'FATACH 'to emblazon' in the description of the manufacture of the Choshen and Efod, the breastplate and epaulettes of the High Priest's jewelry. It refers to the particular form of carving that leaves the subject matter in relief like the design carved into a signet ring.

If we go back to the verse it now reads "You have emblazoned my chains."

Those of us who know anything about anything, know that our chains are our greatest ornament. But ONLY when they have been carved into us by a Master, and only when they are the apogee of our deepest most viscerally experienced desire, the desire to be owned and mastered and enslaved and dominated.

That was/is the gift we were/are given upon leaving Egypt. We are allowed into bondage to the One, the Living God. And each of us must see our self as coming out of Egypt and entering into this new liberating slavery, AVDUT
HASHEM. Freedom from the yoke of human exploitation, freedom from the yoke of fear of dying, freedom, CHEIRUT.

Being a Jew is to revel in slavery and bondage to the One.

The problem is we are so detached. We are so unhappy. The two follow and cause one-another.

I am so unhappy because I am detached from God and I am detached from God because I am so unhappy.

I know that it is de-trop, but there is no more explicit poetic description of this feeling than a poem by the Sixteenth century English metaphysical poet John Donne. It is from a collection of Holy Sonnets. It begins with the
phrase:

Batter my heart three personned God.

(Three personned God, Oy Gevalt! Nebish. what did he know?)

But it ends with this phrase:

Take me, to you
Imprison me
For I, except you enthrall me
never shall be free
nor ever chaste
except you ravish me!

Nomesayn, Chevrah?

I too have turned my hand to poesy from time to time, nebish. Here is #5 from my own collection of Holy Sonnets. It is entitled DO ME:

You don't have to strip me down
and f--- me from behind. Oh Lord,
to have me on my knees
and worship at the source.
You don't have to court affection
beat, ravish or seduce
make me come or make me bleed
sigh shriek or cry surrender.
When all I want is to want you
The way you say, you want me.

Chag SaMayach.

Schleck.

...............

So, what d'you say chevra/ettes, is this bondage deal overrated or what?

Like, did these Egyptians actually know anything about bondage or were they just in it for the pithom and rameses?

And like, was Pokoyd Yifkoyd a safe-word or what?

And the blood on the doorposts, are we talking primal or are we talking jumpin' right over the top?

And the groaning, and the separation of husbands and wives....

Gim'me a break, I mean, if you're gonna' be in bondage at least let it be to the ONE who does it proper.

To begin He as me slice the end of my dick off. And we moved on from there.

No messing with sphinxes and pyramids. It's all
mountains and barrels ready
to drop, right from the word go.

Ya' gotta do these things right, yes... no?

Ya' rin for a ride where gettin' stoned means somethin' entirely else mon.... nomesayn?

Keep countin' them days and weeks - slaves don't get much opportunity to count time and look forward.

Yontiff

an' don't crack the nuts too hard, or drown the sinnermen inna' Charoses, and four cups a whinin can get on yer nerves.

And not in front of the kids....

Love, Schleck.

On his April 14, 2004 entry on his Moonish (his personal psycho-sexual religious bondage site, a stab for integrating his diverse lives) LJ site, Worch wrote about his nine children. He posted pictures of his two oldest daughters.

On July 9, 2004, he posted to Moonish:

spoke too soon
just received this:

Dear Rabbi,

The committee enjoyed the interview with you very much but felt you were not the candidate we need for the senior Rabbi position in the Shul...

His friend Jennifer Hunter replied: "You're such an amazing artist - can't you get work doing children's book illustrations?"

In his August 4, 2004 entry, Worch writes about the visit of his two grandchildren from Chicago.

Rabbi Worch's stories here originally appeared on this site under the name 'Moonish.' They also appeared in the 'Hypnoerotica' Live Journal that was deleted. Now they are under the name "Mesmoerooni."

His Livejournal profile has been deleted, but luckily I saved it:

Volkischer Beobachter
tagbuch der oberabiner
Name: Moonish Lunar
Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OBDSM/
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Birthdate: 05-20
Bio: I'm an out-of-the-closet-Jewish man; (no, not gay, dummy, out-of-the-closet-Jewish!) single, unattached, available and not currently cheating on anyone, even myself.

I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...
I will not get into another long-distance relationshit...

I am easily distracted and have the attention span of a common or garden butterfly. I have a soul from the Olam HaTohu World of Chaos, and I hate rules, on principle.

I'm a musician and singer and I'm trying to assemble a band interested in developing music performances on BDSM themes, in Chicago.

What else?

I aspire to kewl, to sardonic, to couldn't-care-lessness, but it's all a facade. Don't be fooled. Inside it's all slave.
Interests: 55: abayudaya, bashert, body modification and halacha, cabala, chassidism, d/s, discworld, dried frog pills, erotic mind control, face slapping, feminist kabbalah, frum sadism, georgette heyer, golem making, hebrew, hypnoeroticism, i am lonely, izbicy, jpex, judaism, kabala, kabalah, kabbala, kabbalah, kulanu, merkaba, mysticism, nachman of breslov, nashga"z, niddah, obdsm, onemorealias, orangutans, pashtu, qabalah, qabbalah, rincewind, rogers park, ruach, s&m, sefer yetzirah, sepher yetzirah, sonnets, strathnairn, susan death, talmud, terry pratchett, torah, trance, tree of life, wooden boats, writing, zawel kwartin, zohar, ????.

Some questions for rabbi Worch:

Sources tell me that your Torah of Desire is 'the first BDSM Kabbalah ever written'; yet you do not advertise it as such here. Why not?

I also have a few more questions:

* Since you don't advertise your Torah of Desire as being a "BDSM Kabbalah", at what point in their studies do you share this information with your students? Or is that after you've used hypnoeroticism on them first?

* How exactly does a BDSM Kabbalah work?

* Do you use rope bondage on your students in patterns of the ten Sefirot?

* Do you really believe you can induce Chokmah Consciousness in your students and lovers via beatings and hypnoeroticism ?

* Would you explain precisely what you mean by the following from your entry: "More Knowing, More Pain"

But there is another way. The mating of Keter - Crown and Malkhut - Sovereignty, of God and humanity, the ultimate, the vertical coupling. Heaven and Earth, Good and Evil, Beginning and End. Oh, it's much more dramatic, infinitely more dramatic. And more fun.

* What do you mean by more fun, infinitely more dramatic? Is that the point where you get out the whips and floggers?

* Did you learn this particular BDSM Kabbalah from your mentor, Carlebach?

Rabbi Worch the cartoonist.

Rabbi Worch at Hillel House in Melbourne, Australia, in 1995.

I returned from Australia, and found Kulanu's FAX on the matter of the Abayudaya. Evidently, it was arranged by Providence that I should be at the home of a special person, a Jew named Hershey Worch, who is the Rabbi of Hillel House in Melbourne. The reason for my acquaintance with him and my stay at his home was the Abayudaya. He traveled (to Uganda) after the delegation of Kulanu and conveyed information about them to me.

I know R. Worch is a 12 stepper, so I"m guessing this is the same person:
It’s only a cartoon caption, but Hershey Worch’s words on the Web site of JACS (Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others) summarize the ambivalent feelings of America’s Jewish community toward the recovery community — and the importance of its chief guru, Rabbi Abraham Twerski...
Rabbi Worch comes to Adams Street Synagogue
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

"Not your usual suburban rabbi" would be a good description of Rabbi Hershy Worch. Although he was the rabbi of a congregation in Rhode Island, he has also been the rabbi of a congregation in Uganda and a Hillel rabbi in Australia and Illinois.
In addition to that unusual combination of venues, Rabbi Worch is a professional artist and musician as well as a published author. He received his rabbinic ordination from the late Rabbi Schlomo Carlebach.
You will have the opportunity to meet, talk with, study with and sing with Rabbi Worch at the Adams Street Synagogue in Newton the weekend of Jan. 9-11.
Rabbi Worch will speak at Friday night services (services at 4). He will speak at Saturday morning services (starting promptly at 9) on the topic "The End of Genesis." Saturday afternoon services begin at 3:45, and the rabbi will speak on the subject "Time of Desire." Saturday at 8 p.m. is a concert of Hasidic music, combined with a malava malka. The suggested donation for the concert is $10. Sunday morning services at 8 will be followed by breakfast and a lecture on "Exile and Exodus."
The public is cordially invited to all events. Further information can be provided if you call 617-527-7967 or 617-244-3775.
The Adams Street Synagogue is a community synagogue, more than 90 years old, which welcomes Jews of all backgrounds and traditions. The synagogue is the first and oldest synagogue in Newton and is proud to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Make RABBI J. HERSHY WORCH your new rabbi
He is the author of three books and numerous articles. Rabbi Worch is a teacher whose weekly “dial-in” Torah classes include students from all over America. Additionally, he is an artist, photographer, poet and musician. He has conducted Shabbatonim all over the US, Europe and Australia.
See Reb Hershy's picture here.
Last night was a very successful class, especially when Reb Hershy introduced the Izbicer’s remarkable notions on the nature of the higher three spheres. I, personally, was touched by the idea of God as a pregnant entity, giving birth to the world and nurturing it along until it, too, can make a world (or, as Hershy put it, until the human race evolves from Homo Sapiens to Homo Spiritualis).

Rabbi Worch is willing to help with foreign conversions.

Shabbes Cholent in Uganda?

By Rabbi J. Hershy Worch

(Worch, a Lubavitch rabbi living in Australia, visited the Abayudaya in Uganda last August. Following, in Part II, are excerpts from his writings. Part I , describing his discovery of a 70-year-old mikveh, appeared in the previous newsletter.)

It was more than three hours past midnight on a Friday night. I am in Africa, a few minutes north of the Equator, close to the source of the River Nile. I am sitting on a wicker chair with my friends the Bayudaya. As I told a story, all around me on the red earthen floor they were taut with listening. The oldest and youngest of the group snored softly on their bamboo mats. I finished my story.

The dark was overwhelming, palpable; I could not make out a hand in front of my face. It was time for us to retire, to rest, to sleep. But we were much too excited. "Shall we dance?" I asked. For an answer there came a swish, a rustling of clothing, shuffling feet, and we were dancing. Mine were the only feet in shoes that night as we all danced and danced.

Rabbi Worch writes in HonestDS [D stands for dominance, and S for submission] 5/10/04:

I am known as Moonish here in the Live Journal community, but Chapt Schleck in the BDSM scene.

I am a man, twice divorced and 49 years old.

I am a gentle sadist, an articulate and intense dominant with a penchant for edgy behavior.

I will look in your eyes as you begin to groan and I will smile.

'I'm situated on the north side of Chicago I've been around a good few years, around and in the Leather Rose and other play spaces.

-Interests (BDSM):I'm especially turned on by the uses of hypnotism, suggestion, mind control and the trance experience. I can be quite adept at it. I have a voice and am not afraid to use it.

I was in a posiition of social influence and prominence and found people trying to hand me their power. I gravitated to those who wanted me to abuse, hurt, control, use and humiliate them. After a time I realised that the needs were sexual and the thrill was sexual and the payoffs were sexual and the right place to act it out was the sexual... yeah, well, long story... I owned the fact that I can get a thril out of hurting another person, humiliating another person, owning another person...

[Rabbi Worch included this photo of his hand with a collar:]

Rabbi Worch writes 10/18/04:

Last wednesday morning when the protocols hit the newsstand, I was thinking, there's no point in engaging with this luke ford, he thrives on engagement. I wondered what smart thing I might do in response, (nothing) what can I say to mitigate the ferocity of the assault, (nothing) what steps I'm going to take to make it go away. (Don't hold my breath)

But you know, when all's said and done, it's better he should be writing for the internet than driving your children to school, no? And even a night soil porter has a right to a seat on public transportation. You may not want to sit next to him but he's gotta right to make a living too. Eh, I thought, nisht mine gesheft. He'll get on with his business, I'll get on with mine, such as it is.

But then Vicki Polin waded in; and I started wondering, what have I ever done - or not done - to this woman to earn a mention in her website? I thought back to our phone conversation, and how she ended it... and my blood ran cold.

Rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch writes 10/21/04 on his journal about Vicki Polin of The Awareness Center:

I would have been satisfied to have Holy Sister Vikele remove me from her awareness website, I would have breathed a sigh of relief, but no longer. No. The website has to come down. Mostly it has to come down because it is a shaming thing, a shameless, shameful thing, an ERVA where vicki exposes her privates and plays with herself in our faces. But, equally important, it is time to celebrate the good things Reb Shlomo Carlebach gave us all. Next week will be his tenth Yahrzeit - Aniversary. Let's celebrate it with the joy it deserves.

R. Worch used to live in Israel. Like his mentor Carlebach who ordained him, sexual scandal has long dogged R. Worch. He's had to move several times to make a fresh start.

I wonder how many orthodox rabbis who are accused or convicted of sexual offenses used Carlebach as a mentor? I can come up with four: 1. HershyWorch 2. Marc Gafni 3. Michael Ozair 4. Mordechai Tendler

A friend pointed out to me that R. Shlomo Carlebach shattered Orthodoxy's ban on sexual sin for a practicing Orthodox rabbi. My friend argued that prior to Carlebach, an Orthodox rabbi guilty of sexual sins could no longer work as an Orthodox rabbi. But Shlomo broke that mold, and many others.

Rabbi Worch writes on WeirdJews2 June 11, 2004:

I say the question is only, what is your desire...? And if your desire is not what the Torah commands, if like me your desire is to get high or get laid or get lost, why are you not crying about it?

I think we are in a rut. I think I am in a rut. I know that Judaism is in a rut.

And no one talks about shame, about toxic shame and how it poisons us. We feed, we gorge on it and grow bloated like corpses with the gas of shame in us and it spurs on to more Teshuvah and greater sin.

I have no world to come to look forward to. I am a sinner and have lost my place in the world to come. I see it only right here, this is the world to come. I tasted it in your orgasms in the shabbes we spent together, shabbes and bdsm and orgasm and pain and laughter and sex and food and challa and chulent, yup. It was the world to come.

......

I never heard one single rosh yeshiva talk about his own addictions, that's the bottom line, the bottom bottom line. I never heard one magid shiur talk about his struggles with compulsive masturbation. And that's beneath the bottome line. Not even Rabbi Abe Twerski M.D. can talk about his addictions. All he can do is write books about recovery. He cannot stand up and talk about his own struggles 'cos we're Jews and we don't air our dirty linen in public. But the unfortunate things is that we don't air it in private either.

.......

The saying: Nothing stands in the way of the will, is not a Jewish saying; you will not find it in any Holy Book. I would refer you to the Babylonian Talmud: Sukkah 52b. R. Shimon b. Lakish says, The evil inclination (Yetzer Ha'Ra) overpowers a person every single day, trying to kill him. Were it not for God coming to his aid, no person would be able to win against his evil inclination.

I've been communicating for several weeks with a woman who knew R. Jeremy Hershy Worch intimately for several months and grew concerned about his behavior. She writes 10/31/04:

Dear Luke,

Thank you for the work you have been doing on exposing J.Hershy Worch for the fraud and misogynist he is. (I won't use the rabbi title for him---there is not one ounce of anything spiritual to him beyond his talents and well-crafted writing skills.)

I am one---of many, it turns out---women who have come forward to file complaints on him.

First, it needs to be made ABSOLUTELY clear that this is NOT merely about the exposing of some poor benign rabbi with a taste for kinky sex. (whatever two people
do in private, etc. etc.)

This is about a man who is an internet PREDATOR, who intentionally uses his Rabbi title to prey on novices to Judaism, novices to bdsm, women with histories of childhood abuse and emotional vulnerabilities. His only interest in God and Judaism is in how he can use them to be in power-over-others to serve his narcissism and sadistic ego. He preys on vulnerable novices via seduction, romance, kabbalah, to lead into BDSM experiences with him---because we don't have the experience to know about SSC--Safe, Sane, Consensual, the general 'law' of the BDSM world--until we're already in too deep. He manipulates and utilizes trance states and 'hypnoeroticism'(hypnomanipulation) to push and bend our boundaries of Consensuality. You know what non-consensual sex is, don't you? Sure, some
of us have said, "Well, we willingly entered into his madness." Of course: initially we did. But remember: even within a marriage, a husband has no right to manipulate, abuse, nor rape a wife---nor in any romantic/teacher-student/ relationship.

A few of us escapees from his manipulation and abuse found each other. He has been manipulating and sexually abusing women worldwide since he was a teenager---and there are scores of women out there, who, as we all begin to come forward to tell our stories, will show the world for what he really is. All of those lackeys and supporters need to prepare for the shock when they wake up to the fact they've been enablers of a very disturbed, out-of-control and dangerous man with a severe lack of boundaries. And those remaining silent on this are being compliant to his continued abuse of more women.

I encourage every woman who has been psychologically, mentally, spiritually, sexually manipulated and abused by this man in any way, to please contact all
of the following:

Vicki Polin

YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago Loop Women's Services
360 North Michigan Avenue
8th floor
Chicago, IL 60601

Note: It's important that your abuse be made note of through the Rape Crisis Hotline (888) 293-2080 as well.
Whether or not your experience was 'rape', the abuse still needs to be reported. I was informed by one of the Victim's Advocates that, due to the bizarre nature of it all, it will be the number of women's voices that come forward that will further get the attention of the Illinois State Attorney General's Office.

Rape Victim Advocates (RVA)
(888) 293-2080
228 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 240
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 663-6303
http://www.rapevictimadvocates.org

Rabbi Josef Ozarowski
Chicago Rabbinical council
ravjoeo@crcweb.org (773) 465-3900

Rabbi Mark Dratch
mdratch@jsafe.org (203) 358-2200
(worked to push through the Sex Abuse Resolution for
the Rabbinical Council of America)

Information I seek about R. Jeremy Hershy Worch:

* The dates of the years he lived in Israel

* Why he was fired from the Hillel of the University of Illinois

* Why he's been fired from most of the jobs he's held, including a Hillel in Melbourne, Australia, and somewhere up in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan.

* Where he went to Yeshiva

Further Information on related issues:

The Manipulation of Spiritual Experience: Unethical Hypnosis in Destructive Cults

Dealing with after-effects of trance states after leaving a cult

Coping with Triggers

Deception, Dependency, and Dread

The Hurt of Leaving a Cult

Post-Cult Trauma Syndrome

Evaluating Your Cult Involvement

On Jewish Spiritual Abuse

Here's the email that goes out to all new members of rabbi Worch's OBDSM: The Orthodox-Jewish Bondage-Domination Sado-Masochism Connection Yahoo Club:

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Who are we?

We are women and men, Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Hasidim, Europeans, Americans, Asians, Lithuanians, yeshiva educated and university graduates, old and young, passionate and cool. We share a fetish or kink in our makeup or proclivity. I.e. our appetites, leanings or tendencies require/desire Bondage or Domination or Submission or Sadism or Masochism or any permutation of the above for sexual function.

What are we OBDSMs doing?

We are practicing the following kinky/fetish/perverted behaviors in our personal sexual activities. Some of us, (lucky ones?) with consensual spouses, others look for it outside the home.

Age Play

Acucullophallia (being cut)

Algolagnia (love of pain)

Altocalciphilia (high heels)

Amputees

Arse – ass play

Asphyxiaphillia (breath play)

Autoerotica (masturbation)

Blindfolds

Blood

Body hair

Bondage

Branding

Breast and nipple torture

Caging

Candle wax

Chastity devices

Chinese balls

Cling film

Cock and ball torture

Coprophilia (shit play)

Collar and lead

Cupping (suction of the skin)

Dacryphilia (arousal from tears)

Denim

Depilation (shaving)

Diaper fetishes

Discipline

Dildos

Domination

Ears

Exhibitionism

Electro-torture (EMS TENS units)

Feathers

Fisting

Gangbangs

Handcuffs/shackles

Hair pulling

Klismaphilia (douching/enema)

Lace

Latex

Leather

Masks

Nipples

Nurse/doctor fetish

Oral fixation

Paddling/spanking

Play piercing

Play rape

Piercings

Power exchange

The rack

Religious (Rebbe – rebbetzin play)

Retifism (shoes or boots)

Rimming

Role-playing

Rubber

Scent

slave/Master

Tatooing

Tongue fetish

Total power exchange (24/7)

“Toys”

Transvestitism (cross-gender dressing)

Urolagnia (piss-play)

Vibrators

Voyeurism

Whips

If you are wondering why so many of the hitherto anonymous activities you have been enjoying have weird Pseudo-Latin-Scientific names? It has been suggested that their purpose is simply to remind you that nothing you have done is so unique it has not already been named.

What could possibly be Orthodox Jewish in this context?

Orthodox Jewish describes you if you are trying to be Shomer Shabbat, Kashrut, Taharat HaMishpacha, and you don’t consider the UJA Kol Nidre appeal your first and only Tzedaka obligation.

Obviously, some of the activities mentioned above are explicitly forbidden Torah prohibitions. Some, such as those posing a risk to health, are covered by blanket prohibitions against dangerous activities, (V’Nishmartem M’Od L’Nafshoteichem). Others by prohibitions against disgusting behaviors, (B’Al Teshakatzu et Nafshoteichem) Most are prohibited even if they are permissible technically, (Naval Bi’Rishut HaTorah).

We do them anyway, and that is the reason for this List.

Many of us have felt internally self- exiled from the mainstream of Jewish life by our kinks. As practicing members of the Orthodox Jewish Community, our own synagogue society and Torah culture has prevented us from identifying and/or corresponding with one another. Many OBDSMs have expressed the sentiment that while they can imagine never having sex again, they cannot imagine surviving in the closet another day. This list attempts to provide safe place to chat and be heard.

What is OBDSM not?

This forum is not a place for mental health professionals to solicit business. It is not sex-therapy or group therapy. It is not a place to pick up sex-partners or exchange pictures. It is not Hefker!

Did I actually write that?

What is encouraged or discouraged on the OBDSM list?

Well, e.g. writing and asking about the Halachic controversy over anal-sex is ok. Ditto for writing and asking about body piercing or where to find a doctor who is sensitive to the concerns of Orthodox Jewish gay women and men, or how to address safety issues. Writing and telling people on this list what they may or may not do about anal-sex, body piercing or anything else is a no-no.

Also not ok is posting political screeds from either Peace-Now or YESHA. Announcements are ok. Advice is ok. Boring, repetitious posts concerning new virus alerts are not.

Talking about a compulsion to use a burning Shabbat candle in order to obey some extreme kinky desire is ok. Telling someone they are a Sheygetz/Shiksa because they use a particular brand of cling film that does not have an OU Hechsher is not ok.

Do you get the picture?

Is there an OBDSM bottom line?

Disrespectful posts about another member of this list will earn instant and permanent exclusion from the list, without warnings.

Must I write into the list?

Well, it would be nice hear from you once in a while. Especially when you first arrive. We’d like to know something, anything about you. Where you are, e.g. Williamsburg-Brooklyn, or Bondi-Beach- New South Wales. Tell us please what gender you are, and whatever information about yourself you feel safe telling other anonymous people. It’s ok to “lurk” on the list and not contribute anything, preferring to remain an observer. Feel free to jump in and say something about something you think is important.

What are OBDSM Munches?

Munches are monthly or occasional get-togethers, usually in a café or restaurant outside your local Jewish neighborhood where we meet for an hour or two of chat and non-cholov-yisroel coffee. Their purpose, like this list, is to break out of our isolation and help develop some type of network of like-minded people.

Enjoy, enjoy!

10/19/04

Based on my sources and my knowledge of my subject, I believe that at least one of the posters defending Worch on Protocols is R. Worch.

He's now started a Yahoo club: Have you been abused by Vicki Polin (of The Awareness Center).

Here's a comment to someone's question about hypnosis in an erotic context-- from July 16, 2003, written by Livejournal user hydrargirium in the Livejournal community male_dom:

I am sorry, I will come out here as blunt and unloving. But I cannot refrain from spoiling the potential fun with more ugly advice and warning. All do what they want and are free to do so, but my deontology demands that I say this. Hypnosis is not a game. Hypnosis is not a toy. Hypnosis is not a neutral technique of relaxation. Hypnosis is not a means to get to a greater unity, knowledge or intimacy with your partner.

Self-hypnosis is one thing and very different from guided hypnosis.

Guided hypnosis is a (questionable) therapy tool, not a neat New Age trick, and it should be only practiced by licensed therapists.

Hypnosis even as a therapeutic method is greatly questioned, because even *in the hands of therapists* it has caused greater damage to people than it has done good. Tons of paper have been spent on the issue of recovered/implanted memories, and real persons have had their lives ruined.

As a therapist who knows hypnosis and its many pitfalls, I feel obliged to remind all of you that the dangers/undesirable effects of hypnosis are considered too tricky by many even *within the psychotherapy field*. I refuse to use hypnosis in analysis and always will.

At best, it is a mild hallucinatory delusion, capable of offering the same revelations of a hallucinogen drug. At worst, it creates psychic unbalances that may surface even years later, weakens the sense of reality, and may induce psychotic episodes.

So I find it shocking that people can talk so lightly of using guided hypnosis in play, for fun or a thrill, to enhance sensations or produce desirable behaviors. I am scared that so many of you can think of playing with something that is a *psychotherapeutic* technique, only to be employed by specialized professionals if ever.

So I can only say, if you really think hypnosis would be good to solve some of your problems, find a therapist who practices it. Do not do it for play and do not do it with your however beloved and trusted partner who is not a therapist. And if your partner is a therapist and does it for fun and play, I really would like to report him to his professional association.

This I had to tell you.

You see... it is not a matter of trust I believe. It is the tool. Hypnosis is tricky because, however well trained a therapist is in it, it can cause damage to parts of the psyche that we did not even think were involved in the process.

Technically, I can tell you that it is something we do not actually know how it works. It produces in the mind a state of trance (an altered state of conscience where the conscious ego is to varied degrees rendered powerless to exercise control and the mind becomes very open to suggestions) which is detectable through a monitoring of the electrical activity of the brain. It is not possible with every subject and the "depth" degree of the trance varies from individual to individual.

The problem lies in that, in that state of trance, the mind is highly suggestible. And it is not in any way a measurable process with a known course or ever fully under the hypnotist's control.

Anything from the environment may cause an influence, on something unknown to either the hypnotist and the hypnotized, and unsuspected. If done for introspection, we cannot have any certainty about what surfaces, because the subject may well experience as true contents of the self notions put there unwillingly by the hypnotist, or picked up from the setting, which yet have the force of real experience because of the state of trance (here is where you hear speak of implanted memories).

Done with the purpose of altering behaviors, the suggestion part becomes even more eminent, and the possibility of backfiring increases in direct proportions. You cannot ever know what you are messing with, when you give a suggestion order. The mind, especially the unconscious mind, works by analogies and associative chains that do not respond to normal logic. You pull a string here, and you do so in a state where your patient's mind is experiencing visions as reality... and you cannot know what ripples you have caused in the great spider web of the psyche, and what will be moved by that first touch. Maybe the thing you want, maybe that together with others apparently unrelated, maybe another one altogether.

Psychiatrists and serious psychologists use hypnosis with extreme care and under constant monitoring for a reason. Freud started using it quite liberally, then stopped when he found out that it only created more confusion, just where it appeared to reveal important things, because the distinction between what had been "fished up from the deep" and what had been implanted during the session was impossible to make. Others have used it, and continue to, but only with care, never trusting the results completely, and *avoiding* the so called hypnotic suggestion effect (the attempt to implant notions in the mind to alter behaviors) if they are deontologically correct professionals.

Even so, it remains the object of heated debate and highly mistrusted in the medical and psychological profession. And the reason for this is that *we do not really know what we put our hands in*.

I've read postings by "ScrawnyBuddha" [using the posting name of hydrargirium] on R. Worch-related BDSM sites. I contacted "ScrawnyBuddha" and this is part of what "ScrawnyBuddha" emailed me back:

I am an analytical psychologist and my province is the care of souls in the manner of personal dialogue. This implies the opposite of group therapies of any kind, which seems much to be what is happening here.

I was contacted, because of my opinions on hypnosis and especially on the use of hypnosis in BDSM.

My acquaintance with Mr. Worch is limited. We had some exchanges starting with our disagreement on hypnosis and then about mystical things, not to great results as it is likely between people who speak really different tongues. I never met him and never spoke to him, and what I know of his life and practices is only what I read on his LJ journal and on his website, plus what some of his friends said about him. Nothing of what I know can be called sexual abuse; the use of hypnosis as a toy is in my view an irresponsible act, but one for which both parties bear the blame
unless the hypnotizee's suggestibility is one of the symptoms of mental illness.

It seems to me that this matter, as is presented, is an issue among Jews and of Jews, about the unorthodox teachings of what you call an Orthodox rabbi. Sexual (mis)conduct in this context certainly has a different meaning than for most other people, straight or kinky. But aliens cannot be invited to have a say, because they might well question the very tenets of your Weltanschauung.
I asked BDSM expert Ira Levine aka Ernest Greene (husband of Nina Hartley) what he thought about the practices attributed to R. Hershy Worch. He replied:

Wow. I thought I'd seen it all. Guess that's never a safe assumption. None of this stuff looks familiar to me, although some standard BDSM culture language is appropriated, weirdly indeed, along with religious terminology. It's strange enough that one warped mind could figure out how to reconcile all these contradictions, but the fact that this guy appears to have some kind of following truly amazing. Body-modification and Talmudic Law? I don't think so.

I suppose I have run onto some variation of the hynotism-sex thing. We had one very odd client who used to come into a pro-dom club where I worked as a manager when I first got out here. He used to pay girls to dress up like his mother and pretend to hypnotize him and order him to masturbate. Some sort of cripto-Freudian do-it-yourself-therapy kind of thing. Needless to say, not a lot of the girls would do him. Creepy to be sure, but harmless enough, and unlikely to inspire imitation.

I don't know, Luke. This is definitely a visit to an alternative universe where I wouldn't want to spend much time.

The type of behavior you describe is exaclty the opposite of what's considered normal in the BDSM world. The leather community's entire ethic is built on informed consent. No situation in which an individual is drugged, hypnotized, coerced or otherwise made incapable of granting such consent and then subjected to sexual abuse is considered anything but criminal by any community standard.

Criminality of this kind is rare among BDSM people, who tend to be wary and alert with strangers and quick to call out what they regard as inappropriate conduct. This is supported by a close-knit social culture in which secretive activity is difficult. BDSM players don't tolerate predators and don't make good victims.

Not to evade your direct question, however, I think the kind of fantasy you're talking about is extremely rare, but not inconceivable. A younger generation of BDSM players in particular seems to enjoy some fantasy input from Clive Barker, et al, as a feature of their more goth-leaning conception of kinky eroticism. I have to say I don't get it myself, and I suspect some of it is affected for shock-value, but there is some overlap between the younger kinksters and gore-hounds.

10/29/04

To answer questions about whether the Moonish, Chapt_Schleck, The Chief etc posters are really rabbi Jeremy Hershy Worch:

Printed copies of the following exist in all the appropriate places:

* Shleck identifies self also as the Chief, Just Sir Will Do on copy of OBDSM email
* Moonish intro on 'HonestDS' LJ community identifies self also as Chapt-Schleck in BDSM communities.
* Photo icon of his hand holding collar identified as his hand.
* Identifying info in Moonish journal:
* Public entries identifying himself as a Rabbi,
* Living in Chicago,
* Correct age,
* Living on [his] Avenue
* Photo of keys to his Volvo,
* Mentions being a grandfather,
* Mentions having six adult children from first marriage and three from second marriage,
* Photographs of self portrait with the name "Hershy" visible across bottom,
* Photograph of his two adult daughters and their names he posted in his Moonish journal,
* Live Journal entry by someone else [AnotherJen] stating they are going to meet their friend Moonish performing at the Adams St. Shul in Newton, MA on Jan. 10 2004 called "The Fire and the Dance: A concert of Hasidic music and food." (This was Worch, aka Moonish, aka Schleck, Chief, Just Sir Will Do, performing at the Adams St. Shul)

R. Worch with AnotherJen at his right.

From: http://www.livejournal.com/users/anotherjen/155154.html:

Come on, there must be someone with a car who doesn't already have plans this Saturday.
This is a repeat post, for I am starting to think there is no way I'm going to get to this concert, and I'm feeling desperate. If I have to, I guess I can hire a babysitter and take the T and a bus, but A) that's expensive and exhausting, and B) I would really rather bring Ilana. If you have no interest in Jewish music, I'll offer a bribe of a near-future home-cooked dinner. Anyway, below is the post.

My wonderful LJ friend moonish (who I have never met) is coming to Newton, MA to perform in a concert on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 8:00pm. It's called "The Fire and the Dance: A concert of Hasidic music and Food," [my note: what's hasidic food?] and they suggest a donation of $10. It will be at the Adams Street Shul, at 168 Adams St. in Newton MA (http://www.adamsstreet.org).

He wrote to me:
"Would you please bring with you as many of those people you think might be interested in me, in my music, and in the the quaint idea of having a crazed hasidic rabbi come to town...It could be a wild concert. Well, wild as far as hasidic goes."

I really want to go, but I need a ride from Somerville for myself and my kid. Anyone?

J.Hershy Worch writing as Schleck on OBDSM in 2003:

This question, Roxy, was enough, on its own, to rocket me into a hyperbolic fantasy warp drive extragalactic trajectory.

Does anyone know which is the best dog training device to train your male slave, you know the ones that come with a dog collar and remote control and you attach it to your slaves balls and ZAP?

Sweetest chevra, pervs and "ettes" you heard it here. Don't forget to tell your respective rabbis that we have dealt with double clove-hitches as a substitute for unkosher Shabbes knots in Friday night bondage scenes. We have covered whether a Succah may be used as a torture rack after the eight days of Sukkot are over and whether a slave-branding inflicted in the armpit may be considered a Maka B'Chalal HaGuf to allow for ointments on Shabbes. We have dealt with a whole panoply of responsa arising from the practise of hollowing out the etrog for use as an artificial vagina on Shemini Atzeret and the eating of Gebrokts from the womb and whether sperm is one of the seven forms of liquid that may cause Hechsher Tuma if it has been scooped off the top of the mikveh. Even the rare case of a man masturbating into a coffee-filter while underwater in the mikveh has been paskened by kakmeroon the kinkever rebbe shlita. His immortal three-word psak is forever burned into the psyches of the devotees of his publication, Der Analen der Halachics. "S'is Koosher L'Shiktza."

Whether a slave or submissive property is Pooter fin Hasayve (exempt from the obligation to lean in the traditional gesture of freedom) at the Pesach Seder has already been dealt with earlier issues. Is one allowed to rub-the-face of a slave or sub in the Charoseth and can they be forced to ask the Mah Nishtana as though they were the youngest participant at the Seder even if they aren't? This and many other urgent tropical Shaeylot will be answered in the forthcoming Responsa publication, "Yad L'Omo Tikzotz" Vol XIV.

The management wishes to express its appreciation of the enterprising young rabbis from Yeshivah Undiversity who came up with the following heter for gay anal penetrative sex. Since the M/M sex is done wearing a condom and the condom is absolutely forbidden in straight M/F sex, because the sexual act cannot be said to have been fully perpetrated where there is no contact between the sexual organs, the rule is also true for M/M sex. If it is rubber coated it does not technically count as penetration. The Kinkever Rebbe Shlita points out that while the logic is sound there is nevertheless an insurmountable problem, i.e. Lo Tilbash Gever. Thou shalt not wear a man...

So much Torah and so little time...

love and pain, Schleck

Joe Gutnick Takes On The World by Paul Heinrichs May 18, 1996 The Age:

Last year, at Gutnick's Kimberley Gardens synagogue, the visiting Israeli professor from Ben Gurion University, Herman Branover, made provocative comments about Palestinians. The audience consisted of Jewish students led by the director of the Hillel Foundation, the singing Rabbi, J. Hershy Worch, who had been employed as the synagogue's cantor for some months.

When the students asked Branover questions, he talked them down forcefully. Worch objected to this and told a Biblical story that clearly implied views contrary to Branover and Gutnick. Gutnick was livid, mortified - and fired him. What appears to have annoyed him most intensely is that Rabbi Worch, who dresses in very traditional Jewish garb, is clearly a religious man, yet holds an iconoclastic view on Israel.

Many question dismissal of rabbi at Hillel foundation
Published Online Mar 23, 1998
By LYNDA ZIMMER News-Gazette Staff Writer

CHAMPAIGN - Rabbi Hershy Worch, director of Hillel Foundation during the 1997-98 school year, has lost his job. The foundation - at 503 E. John St., C - serves Jewish students on the University of Illinois campus. It was the first Hillel established in the country.

Worch supporters describe him as an exceptional teacher who got a raw deal. Critics acknowledge his teaching talents but say he was no administrator. Portia Shah, a Muslim student, said she was one of about 15 students and community members who went to a Hillel board meeting last week to support Worch because he had welcomed Muslim, Hindu and Christian students to Hillel.

English born, Worch took rabbinical training in his teen-age years and 20s; moved to Israel and New York to become what he called "a starving artist" in his early and mid-30s; then became a rabbi who worked with a congregation in Rhode Island and students in Australia before taking the Champaign job.

Worch and his wife have 4-year-old and 2-year-old sons and a third child due by early May.

1/10/05

Rabbi J. Hershy Worch didn't show up in court last week to challenge custody/visitation rights to his children that he lost a few months ago. I hear he has moved out of his apartment and sold the contents. I believe he is in Turkey.

We're All Victims on this Bus

Yori Yanover (the webmaster of Worch's www.rebhershy.com) writes 2/13/05:

The string of accusations by grown women against various rabbis, that said rabbis have used their position to manipulate them into having sex with them, marks a sad trend in the politics of sexuality, as well as the politics of Jewish egalitarianism.

There should be legitimate cases in which women may turn to the law against abusive men of authority. Employers are not permitted to demand sexual favors, or even to use sexual language, under penalty of law. And minors are not even permitted the right to concede to sexual advances. Statutory rape is rape is rape.

But when a grown woman depicts a rabbi's religious position as an argument to absolve her of responsibility for having adulterous sex, it infantilizes her, and sets back the cause of women's egalitarian role in religious society. If women are so helpless that an authoritative gaze from a clergyman, or even concerted pressure, even nasty, abusive pressure, can cause them to succumb and have sex with him, we must conclude that it's too soon to permit women to have regular intercourse (no pun intended) in an open and unrestrictive fashion. We must shoo all our women into the house and bind them in chastity belts, because they're childlike and unable to withstand temptation.

A society of victims, unable to accept responsibility for their messes, is an infantilized society, one incapable of fending for itself spiritually and otherwise. We mustn't give in to the temptation of blaming our troubles on others. It is something only children do. Indeed, children and feeble minded people are entitled to be treated as potential victims. Grownups must account for their failures, even in the bedroom.

Yori Yanover writes on USAJewish.com 5/16/05:

Pathological Anonymity

Forget for a moment the fact that not a shred of evidence has ever been offered by [Jane] to substantiate the rape charge.

Forget the fact that in the end all [Jane] managed to provide was a collection of private, intensely intimate online postings, under pseudonyms which she attributes to Worch.

Forget the argument over what the role of an organization like the AC should be in this case (as former AC board member Rabbi Ari Kahn told Luke Ford, “It's a victims' advocacy forum. It is not necessarily interested in establishing truth.”).

The disturbing question we, media providers and receivers, must not forget, is why was [Jane] awarded the shelter of anonymity by online reporter Luke Ford. Why, in fact, does he continue to shelter her in all his references, calling her “Jane” and, indeed, censoring her name from published interviews where it comes up.

[Jane] is not employed by Rabbi Worch.

[Jane] does not depend on him for her school grades, or, indeed, for anything at all.

[Jane] is not a minor.

[Jane] is not feeble minded in any way.

On the other hand:

Rabbi Hershy Worch is not employed by any Jewish organization.

Rabbi Hershy Worch does not possess any capacity at all by which he could act to seek vengeful action against [Jane].

Why, then, was [Jane] awarded a shield behind which she could hide while launching one attack after another on Rabbi Worch’s good name, exposing the most vulnerable sexual aspects of his personality, fabricated and otherwise, with no recourse for him to pursue?

My personal belief is that we’ve all been duped by the institutions of victimology, which have been skillful at exploiting the post-Lanner trauma syndrome of Jewish society in America to gain power. They’ve duped not just rank and file Jews, but rabbis and other leaders, all of whom have been sharing the Post Lanner Syndrome.

When the accusations made by TAC, and served regularly by Luke Ford, became too outrageous, their victims started to fight back. As the veracity of each charge evaporated before even the scantiest examination, the AC began to lose board members, including its strongest and, presumably, most legitimate advocate, Rabbi Joseph Blau. Fleeing this career-ending scandal, Rabbi Blau still believes in the AC’s dogma of “Victim Prime.” Only as recently as a week ago he told Steven I. Weiss: “When an alleged abuser is identified… that person has supporters and defenders, and that becomes a very difficult situation.” As if there’s something inherently wrong with the very idea that an accused man seek to refute the accusations leveled against him.

But rogue anonymity is now not the exception but the very rule of the debate surrounding the AC’s allegations. After I exposed Vicki Polin publicly for the first time as the “Rachel” who, back in the “recovered memory” ‘80s accused the Jews of Chicago of participating in satanic rituals, complete with baby slaughter and fornication on open Torah scrolls, anonymous attacks against me became exceptionally vicious. Vicki Polin utilizes several victimology websites under a variety of pseudonyms, all of which were enlisted  to target me.

The details of my business were put out, with a proviso for individuals to contact my clients and try and intimidate them. The IRS anonymous complaint number was given out, asking people to report me. The names of my wife and daughter were put online, just to avail me of that rare sense of intimidation.

The fact that I was never accused of sexual abuse mattered little to the AC chief, who felt justified in exposing the intimate details of my own life, since I’m supporting my good friend Worch in his struggle to recover from Polin’s and [Jane]’s onslaught.

This article... leveling the playing field, if you will, is not an attempt to stop [Jane]. In my opinion she should be allowed to make her allegations. In fact, I encourage her to approach the Chicago Police or District Attorney and, at long last, launch a criminal complaint. But that complaint must bear her full name. She should not be permitted to hide behind the forgery of protected identity.

Nor should any other grownup women who allege to have had sex with clergymen. As a community and as journalists we must not accept the crooked standard which preserves the sanctity of the accuser’s privacy while wrecking the lives of the accused.

Larry Yudelson writes 5/16/05:

Yori Yanover, Threatened by 'Victim Advocate' 'WhistleBlower', Unveils the Anonymous who Roared

Short version: The bloggers will probably be dragged through the legal system long before the rabbis they've been blogging about.

Long version: As noted here last week, Yori "blogging since 1995" Yanover outted Vicki "blogging Jewish sex crimes" Polin as 'Rachel', the cult victim / blood libelist who appeared on Oprah to claim she had been forced to kill a baby as part of an abusive Jewish cult.

This prompted Vicki Polin to decide that Yori's friend, Rabbi J. Hershy Worch, was yet again a threat to Jewish women everywhere -- despite the fact that he currently holds no pulpit and teaches in no school.

When Yori posted about that vindictive move, "Jewish Whistleblower' aka "me" aka ??? emerged from his/her Canadian Internet connection to threaten Yori. Charging that Yori was failing to report income, "Jewish Whistleblower" wrote

If he does not come clean and make full restitution on behalf of his friend in less than 48 hours, I will be forced to make the full details of this public in order to protect Jewish children who have been deprived of food on their plate by Yoram's alleged actions.

For the record, Yori claims that annual sales of Rabbi Worch's tapes have so far been well below the level requiring him to file a form 990 with IRS. (Whether that claim is plausible depends on how popular you view Rabbi Worsch).

I want to note an important point here in JWB's language: He will be "forced" by Yoram's "alleged actions."

Talk about a willful denial of responsibility.

JWB claims he is above the realm of choice; he is, like Jacob our father in the haggadah, anus al pi hadibur, compelled by God's word, to do what he does.

Yori responded today by challenging the basis of anonymous accusations, starting with Worch's alleged disgruntled ex-girlfriend. Those of us who have been paying attention to this whole sordid mess since it first began staining the pages of the now-defunct Protocols blog a year ago aren't at all surprised by this move. After all, JWB had then held up threats to Yanover, his family and his livelihood as the steps he would be "forced" to make if details about various alleged victims were made public in message board (which, for the record, were not under Yanover's control). Having prematurely launched his threatened assault for other reasons (apparently, a combination of vengeance on behalf of Vicki Polin and the apparent spite of Worch's ex-wife), JWB shouldn't be surprised that this information is coming out now.

Where this all is heading, I have no idea. (It is interesting to note that Luke Ford so far has not weighed in on the lastest twists.) Whether any of this rises to criminal harassment is up to the lawyers to decided. If they get involved, then JWB will no doubt be dragged away from his anonymity, as email and telephone records are subpoenaed by those involved in the battle.

Meanwhile, of course, if any of the rabbis fingered by Vicki's Awareness Center are actually guilty of anything, they must be laughing all the way to the.... well, wherever sleazy rabbis go where they laugh. JWB and Vicki have, no doubt inadvertently, focused the discussion squarely on the accusers rather than the accused. Real victims -- and their real advocates -- deserved much better.

5/26/05

Jane's Response To Yori Yanover

She responds to Yori's posting on USAJewish.com:

Dear Luke,

First off, the quote “using his hypnoeroticism techniques to rape women" is not mine. I informed Vicki long ago that that needed to be changed because---aside from sounding outrageous and absurd--- what Worch does is far more subtle and complex than that, and built up steadily over a period of time.

Now I will address Yanover's commentary:

"Forget for a moment the fact that not a shred of evidence has ever been offered by [Jane] to substantiate the rape charge."

I will write about this at some point, and there *are* gray areas to be sure, but when all is said and done, "No" and "Stop" still mean "No" and "Stop". There are several people I discussed this with last summer, however, and if you'd like to speak with/confirm the discussions I can give you their contact info.

"[Jane] is not employed by Rabbi Worch."

"Correct. I cleaned his apartment, made his coffee, did his laundry and typed his correspondance for free.

"[Jane] does not depend on him for her school grades, or, indeed, for anything at all."

Correct, although Worch did introduce me to a friend of his before as one of his "students" of his kabbalah. I did not flunk, I defected.

"[Jane] is not a minor."

Correct.

"[Jane] is not feeble minded in any way."

Correct, even though Worch attempted to impart the suggestions during meditative states: "You have no brain." "Your brain will become nil." "You will be reduced back to an autistic state." "You have no soul." "Your soul is in your womb." Trust me, I came very close to *becoming* feeble-minded due to that experience.

"Worch is not a pulpit rabbi."

True. However, he uses his rabbi title, the fact he is a published author, etc., to lead women he picks up over the internet into a false sense of security and safety.

What's ironic is, prior to Worch, I'd been so paranoid about meeting mutants online that I never went to chat rooms, IMd with strange men. Worch flattered me into a false sense of safety and trust via the fact he's a rabbi, published author, and artist. It's likely there may be an inner circle of groupies he does not outright abuse like he did me, but in one form or another they're still manipulated. Had I not stumbled across last summer another woman who warned me about him, had I not---after breaking off with him at the end of last June--- attempted in writing to get him to own up to and apologize for what he did to me, which he did not do, had I not later gone back to read his archives in OBDSM and come across his sexual dismemberment fantasy in that meat plant, (among other bizarre things), had I not stumbled across hydragiriums' writing about the dangers of hypnosis in erotic context, had I not been told by Rabbis Dratch, Blau, and Vicki Polin that "there have been many complaints about him before," had I not been contacted by a prominant woman in Australia last September who'd been manipulated and abused by him, and has lent me much support via correspondance since then, had I not been told by said rabbis that since he was outside of their jurisdiction that exposure was at least a good thing to warn people, and, had I not ever had the horrible misfortune to have experienced prior to breaking off from him his slow, detailed visual imagery of having sex with my decapitated head while engaged in a trance/meditation with him, I would have gone my merry way, chalked this off as a horrifyingly bad experience.

But knowing he's had a long history of this and the confirmation from other women of their experiences, I simply could not remain silent.

Here is a tremendously gifted man, with some serious, serious problems. His 'friends' had the golden opportunity last fall to force him to face his life, himself, and get some serious help. Instead they chose to continue enabling him. His own writings and behaviors show he was careening headlong into exposing himself long before my involvement with him. (Think of the similarity to serial killers who toy with being caught.) He flaunted it everywhere. He wrote publically that he was amused he was known as "The Rabbi" at a Chicago BDSM club.

For him to be crying "foul" now is absurd. Some part of him has been screaming out to be stopped for a very, very long time.

"Forget the fact that in the end all [Jane] managed to provide was a collection of private, intensely intimate online postings, under pseudonyms which she attributes to Worch."

Worch published those writings online in public forums. Heck, his OBDSM list was even written about in some online Arab newsjournal, as an example for their anti-semitism: "Look at these sick and perverted Jews." He provided the link for the article on his OBDSM list. That, however, was not cause for him, obviously, to close up his weird writings blending Orthodox Judaism with BDSM.

As I mentioned to both you and Stephen last fall, the only 'proof' I have that I did not compose those things myself is: I had no idea of what the bulk of the Hebrew and Yiddish words and phrases were, and his style is unmistakable across the various forums. Yanover has continued to ignore the FACTS that show those very disturbed writings are Worchs'.

Luke, if Yanover needs visuals to shock him out of his denial, you may want to scan some of those documents to have on your Profile page:

* Shleck identifies self also as the Chief, Just Sir Will Do on copy of OBDSM email
* Moonish intro on 'HonestDS' LJ community identifies self also as Chapt-Schleck in BDSM communities.
* Photo icon of his hand holding collar identified as his hand.
* Identifying info in Moonish journal:
* Public entries identifying himself as a Rabbi,
* Living in Chicago,
* Correct age,
* Living on Sacramento Avenue
* Photo of keys to his Volvo,
* Mentions being a grandfather,
* Mentions having six adult children from first marriage and three from second marriage,
* Photographs of self portrait with the name "Hershy" visible across bottom,
* Photograph of his two adult daughters and their names he posted in his Moonish journal,
* Live Journal entry by someone else [AnotherJen] stating they are going to meet their friend Moonish performing at the Adams St. Shul in Newton, MA on Jan. 10 2004 called "The Fire and the Dance: A concert of Hasidic music and food." (This was Worch, aka Moonish, aka Schleck, Chief, Just Sir Will Do, performing at the Adams St. Shul).

I feel terribly sorry for Worchs' former families and children. But I also can't help but wonder how many years, how many decades, have his activities been covered up-----going all the way back to what he wrote about being kicked out of yeshivas, other families being warned not to send their own sons to yeshivas he was attending? Is it possible there are worse crimes he has committed besides manipulating and abusing women? If there are, and people are continuing to cover up for him----they are not helping him any, nor anyone who may have been victimized by him, and are definitely contributing to ensuring he continues to victimize others in the future.

Regarding Yanovers rantings on your having kept my anonymity: Worch is a public figure, I am not. What woman in her right mind would want her name linked to Worch? And, have you noticed that none of his groupies/lovers/students have come forward using *their* full names? When that day comes and an actual female---not Yanover----lets you interview them, using their full names, about Worchs' so-called "hypnoeroticism"/deep breathing techniques/voice-controlled orgasms, and how it's tied into his "kabbalah", and how "healing" and "therapeutic" their relationships with him are (as some described in Protocols comments), then I'll be happy to as well.

Whether he is a sociopath with no conscience, or a narcissistic personality disorder, I have no idea. All I know is my experience; he used his great gifts and talents for the purposes of fooling me into a false sense of safety and trust. I believe that I was just cultivated by him to be a possible source of funding, and one big sadistic experiement for him in how far he could go towards bringing about someone's complete spiritual and psychological annihilation. He's just an internet predator, obviously skilled in his mental/psychological manipulations over many years, perhaps decades, who has abused the internet not to mention his title of "rabbi".

At the end of the day, he's just another former drug and alcohol addict who has found replacements for those addictions in his addictions to sex and power. But he's a guy who happens to have a rabbi title as a key to gaining trust.

His supporters and friends need to pay attention to his own cries for help: from May 2002 of his OBDSM yahoo group: "My soul is wounded and alarmed and in shock, where did the Rabbi go? My soul is screaming, Hey I never signed on for the trip with a sex fiend a kinkster a pervert. A man who can take pleasure in causing pain, humiliation and slavery."

5/31/05

Yori Yanover writes on USAJewish.com: "All three movements have politicized the sexual, and with that robbed us of the carefree availability of our sexual expression. Making a sexual mistake in this society is the most dangerous thing that can ever happen to you; and so, forget about being able to utilize our sexual feelings in our spiritual work."

Jane writes this translation: "All three movements have contributed to bringing forward to the light those who abuse and misuse power. Getting caught abusing that power and getting caught supporting those who abuse that power is no longer easy for slimeballs like me and Worchie. We can no longer get away with manipulating Torah and spiritual yearnings in others for our sadistic and misogynist kicks."

Yori writes: "We so fear the joy which God is giving us with such abundance, the joy of our own bodies, of our spouses, our children, our friends - that we must retreat into the dark, where no one would catch us staring."

Jane translates: "We so fear being exposed for using God as a means to sadistically manipulate and abuse women (and possible children), taking out on others our own self hatred and loathing by the joy we get in leaving welts and bruises on the bodies of women, that we must now retreat back into the dark sewers from which we work, where no one will (hopefully) again catch us."