“I have been called ‘Israel’s best defender.’ Yet New York’s Temple Emanu-El, the most important reform synagogue, has silenced my voice while amplifying the voice of one of Israel’s most toxic detractors.” — Alan Dershowitz.
by Alan M. Dershowitz, GATESTONE INSTITUTE
The interior of Temple Emanu-El, in New York City. (Image source: Gryffindor/Wikimedia Commons)
- [T]his is exactly how McCarthyism worked back in the 1950s. The institutions that banned people accused of being communists did not necessarily believe the accusations or think that they justified the ban, but they feared being tainted even by false accusations. So, they went along with the ban, just to be safe.
- When I was first falsely accused of having had sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre in Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, his island and other specified locations, I stated categorically that I have documentary records that conclusively prove I could not have been in those locations during the relevant time periods. I produced cell-phone records, American Express charges, travel documents, recorded TV appearances, teaching schedules, calendars, court appearances and other documents that persuaded Giuffre’s own lawyers that it was “not possible” for her account to be true, and that—in her lawyer’s own words—she was “wrong … simply wrong” in accusing me.
- We later found several “smoking gun” emails that proved she never met me or even heard of me. She had to be told by a journalist friend that I was a famous lawyer and that my name “was a good name for your [book] pitch,” even though there was “no proof” I had done anything wrong. Giuffre then followed the journalist’s advice and included my name in her book manuscript, but as a person she had seen, but never met, and certainly never had any relations with.
- She told her best friend that she didn’t want to accuse me but “felt pressure” from her lawyers to do so. She also told her best friend’s husband that she never had sex with me. I have recordings confirming this.
- We learned that at the same time Giuffre publicly accused me, her lawyers privately accused Wexner of nearly identical sexual misconduct and demanded a meeting to resolve her “claims” against him. Both Wexner’s wife and lawyer told me it was a “shakedown” (the word is recorded on a tape). It seems obvious that I was being used as a stalking horse to send the unmistakable message to Wexner that if he didn’t want to happen to him what happened to me—namely, a very public accusation—there are ways of resolving the matter.
- When employment records proved she was 17, which is above the age of consent in New York and other states, she admitted she had been “mistaken.” She also admitted that she was “mistaken” when she said she had dinner with Al and Tipper Gore on Epstein’s island.
- [H]er own lawyer has said on TV that based on his 11-year investigation, he does not believe that “any high-profile people” had sex with Giuffre. All of these high-profile people have categorically denied her accusations.
- If her own lawyers don’t believe her sworn accusation—and they have said they do not—how can others credit them? That is probably why the U.S. Attorney’s office that indicted Epstein and Maxwell deliberately omitted Giuffre as a witness.
- Nobody who has seen the evidence believes Giuffre, yet Temple Emanu-El nonetheless canceled me.
- I offered to speak on how to combat these dangers [anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish attitudes in universities and among the hard left], but [t]he synagogue preferred to hear from Peter Beinart, who advocates the end of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and who supports boycotts against Israelis. At the same time that I was canceled, Beinart received a substantial speaker’s fee from the synagogue to make his case against Israel.
- Silence is not the option in the face of unjustified McCarthyite censorship by a synagogue that claims to be a house of study, open-mindedness and Jewish values of dialogue and dissent. So, I will not quietly accept temple Emanu-El’s hypocrisy and cowardice. Nor should you.
I have been called “Israel’s best defender.” Yet New York’s Temple Emanu-El, the most important reform synagogue, has silenced my voice while amplifying the voice of one of Israel’s most toxic detractors. Here are the facts:
For several years, I was the “defense lawyer” for biblical characters who were put “on trial” at Temple Emanu-El. The trials—of Abraham, Moses, David, Noah and others—were the most popular and well-attended events at the temple. Upwards of 1,500 people would attend, listen to the evidence and then vote “guilty” or “not guilty.” I was the “defense attorney,” and different “prosecutors” were selected to present the case against the “defendant. They included former Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, former cable-news TV commentator Chris Cuomo, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and others. King David was found guilty; all the others were found not guilty. The audiences loved these trials, and the expectation was that they would continue for many years, culminating with “the trial of god” himself.
In the fall of 2019, the trial of Joseph’s brothers for selling Joseph to the Egyptians was scheduled and announced. A prosecutor was selected, and I was preparing my case. Then the temple decided to be “cute” and make the trial relevant to current headlines. So they advertised it (without consulting with me) as the trial of Joseph’s brothers for “trafficking” Joseph. After some objections were raised to a trial of trafficking in light of the Jeffrey Epstein case at the time, I suggested putting a different biblical character on trial. Instead, the synagogue leadership decided to “postpone” the event. Rabbi Joshua Davidson assured me that the trials would soon resume.
Liberal Jews: The lost XIVth tribe for ever.