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Criticism of rabbi’s salary may have been erased from the internet due to fraud, investigation claims
(JTA) — Did someone associated with the late Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein’s nonprofit pay a company to remove criticism of his and his daughter’s salaries from the internet?
That’s the question being raised by a recent Washington Post investigation into the allegedly fraudulent activities of a firm that launders clients’ online reputations.
The large organization Eckstein founded, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, raises funds from evangelical Christians and other donors for impoverished Jews. It also facilitates Jewish emigration to Israel, including from Ukraine. Eckstein founded the group in 1983, and died in 2019.
But the issue of his compensation came up last week in a Washington Post expose about a company that allegedly makes baseless claims to protect the reputations of public figures. The Post reviewed nearly 50,000 records of the company, Eliminalia, documenting its activities on behalf of almost 1,500 clients over six years. Some paid more than $200,000 for the company’s services.
In the Eckstein case, Eliminalia is accused of demanding that the publishing platform WordPress erase two blog posts criticizing Yechiel and Yael Eckstein’s salaries as excessive, on the fraudulent basis that the posts were plagiarized from other sources.
The blog posts were written by Geri Ungurean, whom the Post identifies as a 71-year-old retiree in Maryland, and who also appears to identify as a “Jewish Christian.” Both posts, published in 2015 and 2018, were titled “Why Christians should Not Give Money to Rabbi Eckstein of IFCJ.”
Publicly accessible tax documents show Eckstein’s total compensation in 2018 was more than $700,000, and that his daughter Yael Eckstein, who then served as executive vice president, earned more than $400,000. In 2019, the year the elder Eckstein died, his total compensation jumped to roughly $3 million, which an IFCJ spokesperson, Shavit Greenberg, said was due to a death benefit paid out to his widow. The nonprofit’s revenue in both years exceeded $100 million. A Haaretz article published in 2017 also questioned the size of Yechiel Eckstein’s salary.
The top salaries of Jewish nonprofit executives and their employees has long been a topic of discussion and concern among Jewish groups. In 2017, the Forward counted 18 CEOs who were earning more than half a million dollars. The introduction to the survey said that since the Forward’s previous survey of CEO compensation, “the gender gap at Jewish non-profits has only widened and a few non-profit executives are receiving extraordinary payouts.” This year, a survey of Jewish nonprofit employees by Leading Edge, which focuses on workplace culture at Jewish groups, found that fewer than half of respondents said their “salary is fair relative to similar roles at my organization.”
In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Greenberg said the organization “has never engaged Eliminalia or any firm that engages in unethical practices.”
Greenberg’s statement added that the organization could not say whether Yehiel Eckstein paid for the service himself — though it did not rule that possibility out. If Eckstein did have a role in hiring Eliminalia, it would have been well before the company’s alleged activity on his behalf took place: The Post article made clear that Eliminalia was hired on the Ecksteins’ behalf in 2020, more than a year after the elder Eckstein died.
“If there is a record of Rabbi Eckstein making such payment over five years ago, it was a personal decision made completely independent of The Fellowship,” Greenberg said. “Rabbi passed in 2019 and is the only one able to comment on the alleged payment to Eliminalia.”
Asked about the discrepancy in dates, Greenberg wrote via email, “The Fellowship nor our current president has ever engaged with Eliminalia and had never heard of the company until the article.”
The Post wrote the expose with the assistance of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based consortium of investigative journalists. Forbidden Stories had obtained internal documents detailing Eliminalia’s methods. Eliminalia did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment, citing “business secrecy.”
Eliminalia’s techniques, according to the Post, include burying negative stories in search results by supplanting them with positive ones from fake news sites — a practice that media watchdogs see as unethical, but not illegal. What is illegal is another practice: making false claims to web hosts that content on their sites has been previously published by other outlets, and is therefore copyright protected and should be erased.
That, according to the Post, is how Eliminalia approached WordPress about Ungurean’s blog in 2020. Two companies claimed copyright of Ungurean’s 2015 and 2018 blog entries. According to the Post article, those companies show no sign of existing other than to make those claims.
Eliminalia was paid roughly $6,400 for the action, the Post reported. Ungurean shared emails with the Post from Automattic, WordPress’s parent company, that said the company ignored the requests, finding them suspect.
Nonetheless, the 2015 post disappeared. The 2018 post is still online. Automattic told Ungurean that someone using her log-in erased the 2015 post in January 2022. Ungurean told the Post she did not erase her content and believes her account was hacked.
The Post compared two searches on Yahoo for “Yael Eckstein salary,” one in October 2020 and one from last month. On the 2020 search, the 2018 blog post by Ungurean shows up fifth; last month’s search did not turn up the blog post in its first 100 entries. Among the top posts, however, is an advertisement entitled “Yael Eckstein: Salary, Spending and the Non-Profit Double Standard,” in which the younger Eckstein posits that non-profit executives should get salaries commensurate with the for-profit sector.
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Texas Cemetery Unveils First North American Permanent Memorial Dedicated to Oct. 7 Hamas Attack
Hundreds attended the unveiling ceremony of the first monument in North America commemorating the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack at the Shalom Baruch cemetery in Humble, Texas. Photo: Shalom Baruch Cemetery
A Jewish cemetery in Texas recently unveiled the first permanent memorial in North America commemorating the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The 12-foot tall Star of David sculpture at Shalom Baruch – located in the Houston-area city of Humble – honors the victims, survivors, and hostages of the Oct. 7 massacre. It was conceptualized and designed by an art committee that included Anat Ronen, Kirsten Coco, and Jonathan Dror.
“The Star of David emerging from the ground stands as a symbol of resilience, identity, and collective memory,” said Coco. “It honors those we lost, affirms the strength of Israel and reflects a commitment to rise above hate, together.”
A companion ribbon-shaped sculpture nearby, created by Israeli artist Yaron Bob, was made out of shrapnel recovered from missiles that were fired at Israel from Iran and intercepted by the Jewish state’s Iron Dome system.
The sculpture symbolizes transformation and hope, according to a description on the cemetery’s website. Bob is well known for creating a similar piece that US President Donald Trump gifted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this summer and a menorah for President Barack Obama in 2014.
Yaron Bob’s sculpture made from shrapnel. Photo: Chuck Thompson
Shalom Baruch was founded in 2023 by Israeli-American Varda Fields in honor of her father. Guests who attended the memorial’s unveiling ceremony were encouraged to leave notes in the cemetery’s Western Wall replica and promised that their notes would be delivered to the real wall in Jerusalem when Fields travels to Israel next. Memorial stones, made by adult artists living with intellectual and developmental disabilities through Alexander Jewish Family Services’ Celebration Company program, were given to attendees to place at the memorial’s base, in line with the Jewish tradition of placing stones on the grave of a loved one.
The Oct. 7 memorial sculpture is available for viewing to the general public during the cemetery’s regular hours, Monday through Friday. It was unveiled earlier in November during an event attended by several local, state, and national elected officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and more than 200 community members, civic leaders, and faith representatives.
“Jewish Houstonians and our many allies showed up for us today,” said Fields. “I can only hope that they continue to speak up against antisemitism, support the Jewish people, and even encourage others around the country and the world to build their own memorials so that we never forget what happened on Oct. 7 and every day thereafter.”
“This monument … serves as a powerful symbol of resilience, identity, and the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people,” US Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), who attended the unveiling ceremony, said in a statement on social media. “It stands as a reminder that even in the face of unimaginable hate and terror, we rise, together with strength, faith, and a commitment to ensure the world never forgets. May this memorial inspire unity, remembrance, and a continued stand against antisemitism, here at home and across the globe.”
Speakers at the unveiling ceremony, co-sponsored by the Holocaust Museum Houston, included former Hamas hostage Omer Shem Tov, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas-led terrorists and held captive in the Gaza Strip for 505 days. Shem Tov was released from captivity on Feb. 22 as part of a ceasefire deal. He spoke at the ceremony about the hostages and the soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who were killed protecting Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. The Shalom Baruch cemetery honored him with its inaugural “The Lone Star of Israel Award,” which it will present annually.
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UK University Researcher Banned From Campus After Uttering Medieval Antisemitic Tropes at SJP Lecture
Illustrative” Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
University College London (UCL) on Thursday condemned an on-campus incident in which its former researcher uttered “vile” antisemitic statements during an event organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a global anti-Israel network linked to jihadist groups.
As seen in footage shared by StandWithUs UK, the researcher, Samar Maqusi, delivered a pseudo-academic lecture at the UCL Student Union which argued that Napoleon Bonaparte recruited Jewish financiers to join him in a conspiracy to end the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of the Holy Land, saying the French emperor sought the fictional partnership because “Jews pretty much controlled the financialization [sic] structure.”
Additionally, she charged that Jews harvest the blood of gentiles to use it as the key ingredient of “special pancakes,” a classic antisemitic trope pulled from the medieval age and used to justify pogroms and many other forms of legalized anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution.
“I am utterly appalled by these heinous antisemitic comments. Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university, and I want to express my unequivocal apology to all Jewish students, staff, alumni, and the wider community that these words were uttered at UCL,” university president and provost Michael Spence said in a statement. “The individual responsible is a former fixed-term researcher at UCL, but not a current member of UCL staff. We have reported this incident to the police and have banned her from campus.”
He added, “We have launched a full investigation into how this happened and have banned the student group which hosted it from holding any further events on campus pending the outcome of this.”
UCL’s Student Union also condemned the incident while announcing disciplinary sanctions for SJP which halts its operating on campus indefinitely.
“The antisemitic tropes used throughout the lecture are reprehensible, and we condemn this language in the strongest possible terms. Every person in our community has a duty to call out and challenge hate speech on our campus,” it said. “We have suspended the two organizing societies, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jews for Palestinian Justice, with immediate effect. A full investigation through our disciplinary procedures will now take place.”
UCL is not the only university in the United Kingdom to see recent antisemitic acts.
At City St. George’s, University of London Israeli professor Michael Ben-Gad has been unrelentingly pursued by a pro-Hamas organization which calls itself City Action for Palestine. It has subjected him to several forms of persecution, including social media agitprop, spontaneous, unlawful assembly at his place of work, and even a petition of their own.
City Action for Palestine is one of London’s most notorious anti-Zionist groups, convulsing higher education campuses across the city with pro-Hamas demonstrations which demonize pro-Israel Jews, attack policies enacted to combat antisemitism, and amplify the propaganda of jihadist terror organizations. Ben-Gad is not its only victim, as the group has targeted Members of Parliament, the Union of Jewish Students, and City University London president Anthony Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the child of a Holocaust survivor.
In 2023, just months before Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, the National Union of Students (NUS), a body representing thousands of university students in the UK, apologized for discriminating against Jewish students.
The expression of contrition followed years of incidents to which Jewish groups pointed as evidence that antisemitism was prevalent throughout its organizing structure. Jewish students had reported incitement of violence against Israeli civilians, the spreading of conspiracy theories about Mossad’s rumored role in the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), and opposition to a motion proposing observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
In November 2022, NUS removed president Shaima Dallali after finding her guilty of antisemitism and other misconduct. Dallali’s tenure at NUS brimmed with controversies, including the discovery of tweets in which she called Hamas critics “Dirty Zionists” and quoted the battle cry, “Khaybar, Khaybar o Jews, the army of Muhammad will return,” a reference to the Battle of Khaybar in 628 that resulted in a massacre of Jews.
UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently called on higher education officials to “tackle this poison of antisemitism,” calling the trend “unacceptable.”
“There can be no place for harassment and intimidation,” she said while appearing on a program by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which has itself been scrutinized for deluging the airwaves with false stories fed by the Hamas terrorist organization. “Universities can and must act on that.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Jewish Whore’ Graffiti Targets Mexican President Sheinbaum During Anti-Government Protests
During anti-government protests, the words “Puta Judía,” which translate to “Jewish whore,” were spray-painted on the gates of Mexico City’s National Palace, apparently targeting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-government protests in Mexico City turned openly antisemitic over the weekend, with demonstrators chanting and scrawling graffiti attacking President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Jewish heritage — sparking outrage from Jewish leaders and politicians nationwide.
On Saturday, protesters spray-painted the words “Jewish whore” on the gates of Mexico City’s National Palace, the presidential residence, in an act apparently directed at Sheinbaum, the country’s first female and Jewish president.
According to local media reports, youth groups staged the protest to voice their concerns over escalating violence, crime, and corruption, particularly linked to the country’s drug cartels.
Clashes erupted shortly after local police moved in to contain the demonstrations, leaving dozens reportedly arrested and injured.
During the protest, demonstrators targeted the presidential residence with antisemitic insults, chanting slurs and spray-painting a crossed-out Star of David on its walls.
En México, los mexicanos pintaron con aerosol la frase “puta judía” en las puertas del Palacio Nacional, tras el descontento generalizado con Claudia Sheinbaum, la presidenta del país.
Las protestas se intensificaron especialmente tras el asesinato de un alcalde, Carlos Menzo,… pic.twitter.com/bfqfuHrW5m
— ITON GADOL es Israel y las comunidades judias (@Itongadol) November 16, 2025
The country’s Jewish community has strongly condemned these latest incidents, denouncing the antisemitic attacks and calling for accountability.
“Antisemitism is a form of discrimination according to our constitution and must be rejected clearly and unequivocally,” the statement read.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also condemned the displays of anti-Jewish bigotry, expressing solidarity with Sheinbaum and warning against such acts of political violence.
“Israel strongly condemns the antisemitic and sexist slurs directed at Mexico’s President [Claudia Sheinbaum],” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“There is no place for such attacks in political discourse. All forms of antisemitism, in any context, must be rejected unequivocally,” Saar continued.
Israel strongly condemns the antisemitic and sexist slurs directed at Mexico’s President @Claudiashein. There is no place for such attacks in political discourse.
All forms of antisemitism, in any context, must be rejected unequivocally. pic.twitter.com/HEDKzq34e8— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) November 16, 2025
As in many countries around the world, the Jewish community in Mexico has faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes they continue to face.
Earlier this year, Voice of the People — a global initiative launched by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to survey and amplify Jewish voices worldwide — released a study showing that concerns about rising antisemitism now top the list of challenges facing Jewish communities across demographics.
Among Jews in Mexico, 84 percent expressed deep concern about rising antisemitism.