Cityscape

The Phony Rabbi: 'She Was Not Truthful With The Clergy, Leadership And Congregation'

November 23, 2013, 9:00 AM by  Alan Stamm


Keren Alpert, 48, falsely claimed she finished trainining to be a rabbi via a distance learning program.

Even the youngest pupils in synagogue schools know lying is wrong. Now that lesson is hammered home forcefully for a local rabbi, as Mark Hicks tells Detroit News readers:

A rabbi at a prominent Metro Detroit synagogue has stepped down after temple officials said she admitted to deceiving them about her credentials.

Keren Alpert’s resignation from Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills was “sadly accepted,” board president Raymond Rosenfeld said in a letter to congregation members.

The deception is a whopper: "Rabbi" Alpert isn't really a rabbi.

Here's what the board leader, describing "an especially challenging time,” tells stunned worshipers: 

“In recent days, Keren admitted that over the past five years she was not truthful with the clergy, leadership and congregation. Specifically, she did not initiate or complete a rabbinic training program, and did not disclose this fact. Accordingly both her ordination and her position at Temple Beth El were accepted under false pretenses.” . . .
News of her exit rocked longtime members of the synagogue.

Noted architect Minoru Yamasaki designed Temple Beth El at Telegraph and 14 Mile.

But not to fear that her rabbinical acts need a do-over. Rosenfeld relays this assurance:

“We have consulted multiple authorities who all concur that even though Keren never trained as a rabbi, the Jewish rites that she performed over the past year are still absolutely valid, including all weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, conversions and baby namings.”

Alpert, 48, lives in Grosse Pointe Farms and had an ordination ceremony at Beth El in May 2012, supposedly after finishing a Philadelphia-based distance learning program.


Read more:  The Detroit News


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