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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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The post Criticism of rabbi’s salary may have been erased from the internet due to fraud, investigation claims appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hezbollah Plotting to Attack Israel From Syria, Report Says, as Fears Grow of Wider Middle East War
Smoke billows after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Lebanon, March 2, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Hezbollah is reportedly seeking to launch attacks against the Jewish state from Syrian territory in support of Iran while continuing operations along the Lebanese border, fueling fears the Middle East war is escalating and expanding across multiple fronts.
According to Israeli broadcaster Kan News, which cited Arab intelligence sources, the Syrian government has instructed its military forces to prevent any terrorist cells operating in Syria from launching attacks against Israel, amid Iran’s broader regional confrontation with Israel and the United States.
As Hezbollah vowed to support Iran in its broader confrontation with Israeli and American forces by targeting the Jewish state, Damascus has reportedly strengthened security controls in southern Syria, setting up checkpoints in an effort to prevent any cross-border attacks or terrorist operations from taking shape.
Although Iran and its terrorist proxies were expelled from Syria after the fall of long-time Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the new Syrian government under President Ahmed al‑Sharaa has continued to focus on dismantling the infrastructure that Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies built on the Syrian side of the border.
According to media reports, Damascus is also preparing to potentially target the positions of Hezbollah along the border in the Bekaa Valley, a region in eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border, in an effort to weaken the group’s operational infrastructure.
However, Syrian leadership has said it has no plans to conduct military operations against any neighboring country, reiterating that its military deployments are aimed strictly at securing borders and maintaining internal stability.
“But Syria is prepared to deal with any security threat to itself or its partners,” a security official told the Times of Israel.
As the war continues to escalate across the region, Syria has further strengthened its border with Lebanon by deploying thousands of troops, including infantry units, armored vehicles, and short-range rocket launchers, in an effort to curb arms and drug smuggling while preventing infiltration by Hezbollah or other terrorist groups.
After Hezbollah fired multiple rockets into Israeli territory in support of Iran earlier this week, the Jewish state launched a wave of airstrikes across southern and central Lebanon, striking sites linked to the group’s military infrastructure.
On Monday, the Israeli military said it killed the commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, calling the operation a major blow to the Iran-backed terrorist group’s capabilities.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that he had authorized the military to advance and take control of additional positions in Lebanon, where Israeli troops have held several hilltops since a war with Hezbollah in 2024.
With dozens of people killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes, Hezbollah’s move to enter the conflict has sharpened long-standing divisions in Lebanon over its status as an armed group – the only Lebanese faction to keep its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war.
The Lebanese government has even taken the unprecedented step of banning the military activities of Hezbollah. The pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar condemned the decision as a “capitulation to dictates,” warning that it could potentially spark the outbreak of civil war.
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Florida International University College Republicans Denounce Antisemitic, Racist WhatsApp Group
Conservative youth at Turning Point USA event in October 2025. Photo: Cheney Orr via Reuters Connect
The Florida International University (FIU) chapter of College Republicans, one of the largest conservative student groups in the US, has condemned antisemitism and other forms of bigotry following the revelation of a virulently racist group chat in which conservative youth exchanged antisemitic slurs while calling for the of murder African Americans.
“As the first female Jewish president of FIU College Republicans, I can personally attest that the recent reports regarding an external chat have no place in our society,” Gabriela Burstein said in a blistering statement condemning the chat, which reportedly included members of her College Republicans chapter.
“There is simply no place for antisemitism, racism, or violence of any kind and in no way reflect our conservative community within Florida,” she continued. “Our executive board, chapter members, community supporters, and I are absolutely appalled by the rhetoric that has surfaced.
As first reported by The Miami Herald, the group chat, created on WhatsApp, was described by its members as “Nazi heaven” for the daily barrage of extremist comments contributed to it. Individuals affiliated with the Miami Dade Country Republicans, Turning Point USA, and College Republicans casually said “ni—er,” denounced women as “whores,” and spoke rapturously about Adolf Hitler.
Dariel Gonzalez, according to the Herald, was one of the chat’s most prolific contributors, bandying about comments regarding “color professors” and telling members that “You can f—k all the k—kes you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.” Gonzalez, a former board member of FIU’s College Republicans, also reportedly promoted belief in “Agartha,” a Nazi utopia confected by Heinrich Himmler, while fantasizing about the possibility of engaging in onanism there. Some vile remarks drew the approbation of other chat members, many of whom are connected to Republican Party organizations across the state.
The Herald added that the chat was founded by Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party. On Thursday, the organization denounced him and the chat, adding that it has demanded his resignation.
“His words and actions are reprehensible and are completely inconsistent with the values of the Republican Party of Miami-Dade County. The words and actions of this individual do not speak for our party,” chairman Kevin Cooper said in a statement. “We are the party that fought to end slavery, the party that welcomed Cuban refugees fleeing communism to freedom in Miami, and the party that continues to welcome Americans of every race, faith, gender, and nationality who believe in liberty and opportunity.”
FIU president Jeanette Nuñez described the content of the group chat as “abhorrent and extremely disturbing language” in her own statement.
“FIU does not and will not tolerate violence, hate, discrimination, harassment, racism or antisemitism. This is not who we are. This is not what FIU stands for,” she added. “We take these allegations very seriously. The alleged conduct continues to be investigated by FIU Police Department in coordination with local, state, and federal law enforcement. In addition, the FIU Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity are actively investigating the matter.”
The group chat’s exposure comes at a time when, according to recent polling, young Republicans have increasingly embraced antisemitism and conspiracy theories.
Last month, for example, survey by Irwin Mansdorf, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, and Charles Jacobs, president of the Jewish Leadership Project, found that 45 percent of Republicans under the age of 44 said Jews pose a threat to the “American way of life.”
In December, the Manhattan Institute, a prominent US-based think tank, released a major poll showing that younger Republican voters are much less supportive of Israel and more likely to express antisemitic views than their older cohorts.
According to the data, 25 percent of Republicans under 50 openly express antisemitic views as opposed to just 4 percent over the age of 50.
Startlingly, a substantial amount, 37 percent, of GOP voters indicate belief in Holocaust denialism. These figures are more pronounced among young men under 50, with a majority, 54 percent, agreeing that the Holocaust “was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.” Among men over 50, 41 percent agree with the sentiment.
This dynamic has played out on college and university campuses across the US, where antisemitism has surged in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The Algemeiner has reported daily on campus antisemitism incidents which involved identity-based physical assaults, verbal abuse, and others acts of discrimination. These included anti-Zionists spitting on Jewish students at the University of California, Berkeley while calling them “Jew”; gang assaults at Columbia University’s Butler Library; swastika graffiti; the desecration of Jewish religious symbols; and the expulsion of a sexual assault survivor from a victim support group over her support for Zionism.
Other incidents include a faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic political cartoon which marked Jews and Israel as enemies of people of color; a Cornell University student threatening to murder Jewish men, whom he called pigs, and to rape Jewish women, and perpetrate a mass shooting at the campus’ kosher dining hall; and professors praising Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, which included mass murder, sexual assault, and kidnapping as legitimate modes of “resistance.”
Many such incidents preceded the Oct. 7 massacre by several years and received little to no coverage in the mainstream press.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Chef Eitan Bernath Sets New Guinness World Record for Making Largest Matzah Ball Soup
Eitan Bernath set a new Guinness World Record for making the largest serving of matzah ball soup on Feb. 27, 2026. Photo: Eric Vitale
Jewish chef and cookbook author Eitan Bernath recently set a new Guinness World Record for making the largest serving of matzah ball soup.
The matzah ball soup weighed in at 1,356.9 pounds and was verified by Guinness World Records in Brooklyn, New York, on Feb. 27. The soup contained 847 hand-rolled matzah balls, and it took 10 chefs about 11 hours to prepare the soup, according to the Guinness World Records. All the soup was donated to City Harvest, New York City’s largest food rescue organization, which will serve it to thousands of hungry New Yorkers in food pantries and soup kitchens.
“There’s no food that brings back more memories of being surrounded by family than matzo ball soup,” Bernath, 23, told The Algemeiner in a statement. “So, when I set out to make the world’s largest version of a dish, choosing matzo ball soup was a no-brainer. Every bowl is a bowl of comfort. Being able to create a giant version was both an incredible challenge and a thrill. It meant even more to me that after setting the record, we were able to donate all the soup to New Yorkers in need — sharing the comfort of matzo ball soup even further.”
Bernath — who is also a social media content creator and the principal culinary contributor for “The Drew Barrymore Show” — said the matzah ball soup was comprised of 120 chickens, 300 carrots, and 250 bunches of herbs. The soup also included parsnip, turnip, celery root, onions, parsley, dill, paprika, and salt. Bernath used ChatGPT to scale up his grandmother’s matzo ball soup recipe to a 200-gallon version, and to help him also find the right vessels needed to make such a large portion. To hold more than 160 gallons of hot liquid, he ended up using a water trough, typically used for horses, which was lined with a food-grade liner.
On Instagram, Bernath shared behind-the-scenes photos that show the making of the massive matzah ball soup. In the caption, he explained that creating the record-breaking dish “was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done.”
“As a proud Jew, creating a record-setting giant version of such an important Jewish dish meant the world to me,” he added. “I couldn’t be prouder of my team and I for pulling this off. I will never look at a bowl of matzo ball soup the same again!!”