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Beachhead

Rabbi Marc Schneier’s Hampton Synagogue caters to New York’s wealthiest at their summer playground. As his personal life spun out of control and into the tabloids, they returned the favor by closing ranks around him.

By Allison Hoffman|June 15, 2011 7:00 AM|53comments
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(John Ritter)

Schneier, it seems, always wanted to be a star. “My mother claims that when I was 2 years old I got up on the table and I began to preach,” he told me at Bistro Bis. “You know the story of Kol Nidre night when they couldn’t find me?” Schneier asked. “The New York Times wrote about this—I was 3 years old, or 4 years old, and at Kol Nidre I disappeared from sitting next to my mother, and no one could find me.” Schneier had been perched in the Torah ark, waiting to burst into view of the congregation as the doors were opened. The story is a popular family legend: Schneier’s father, Arthur, also recounted it in an email. “Marc’s disappearance in the Ark during one of the High Holy Day services was a hilarious moment,” the elder Schneier wrote, “but in a way prophetic of his calling.”

The rabbinate was, after all, the family business. The Schneiers are related to the Lubavitch leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson and get invitations to reunions of the extended clan in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the movement’s epicenter. Arthur Schneier was born in Vienna in 1930 and came to the United States after World War II. He was ordained as a pulpit rabbi at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary—the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy, better known as RIETS—in 1956 and in 1962 took over the Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he remains today.

As a boy, Marc Schneier went to Ramaz, the Modern Orthodox day school on the Upper East Side, but left after eighth grade because he was worried he wouldn’t have the necessary training to follow his father to the seminary. “I knew at the time it would not prepare me to eventually enter Yeshiva,” Schneier told me, adding that he wrote a letter about it to the school’s head, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. (In response to an email query, Lookstein wrote: “Sorry, I do not want to speak about Marc Schneier.”) Schneier commuted to Yeshiva University High School, in Washington Heights, and then enrolled at Yeshiva College, where he majored in philosophy and graduated cum laude; his senior year, he served as president of the student council. In 1980, Schneier enrolled at RIETS, and a few months later, just shy of his 22nd birthday, married a Barnard undergraduate named Elissa Shay at Park East in a ceremony officiated by Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren of Israel and Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania. The marriage didn’t last. “I was young,” Schneier said, with a shrug. “We make mistakes when we’re young.” After his ordination, in 1983, Schneier joined Park East as an associate rabbi alongside his father, who was by then famous for cultivating relationships with local politicians and foreign dignitaries. “I was the heir apparent to the throne,” Marc Schneier said.

Yet in 1984 Schneier decided to abandon his fate, and he took up a career in real estate. He went to work for Harry Helmsley, the real-estate magnate and husband of Leona, handling residential loft conversions in lower Manhattan. “He came in as something like an intern,” said Kenneth Patton, a former city economic development official who was director of operations at Helmsley-Spear and is now a professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. “He was very bright and picked it up pretty good.” After four years, though, Schneier gave it up and returned to Park East. “To a degree I was the boy wonder of the firm,” Schneier said over dinner. “The Helmsleys had no children,” he added. But, he went on, “I always felt I was put here to do something more meaningful, you know, greater, in terms of a humanitarian, from a humanity point of view. That’s what I missed being involved in real estate.”

In 1965, the elder Schneier had established a philanthropy called the Appeal of Conscience Foundation—today an $11 million organization—that hosted dialogues among religious and political leaders separated by the Cold War. Marc Schneier started his own group, called the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which he set up in 1989 in partnership with the theater impresario Joseph Papp, to promote racial harmony. Meantime, Papp connected Schneier with artists like the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who told the Forward in 1996 that she consulted with Schneier when writing The Sisters Rosensweig.

The next summer, the younger Schneier borrowed a Torah from Park East and launched his own operation in Westhampton Beach, in once genteelly anti-Semitic Eastern Long Island. With his second wife, Esther, Schneier welcomed guests to a wood-shingled rental house for Shabbat services. The minyan was quickly dubbed “the shul with the pool”—and just as quickly was threatened with a shut down, after village officials determined that the property wasn’t zoned for religious services. The fight appealed to Schneier’s sense of drama, and, with support from then-New York City Mayor David Dinkins, he successfully fought the injunction. “The irony is, if they’d said nothing, there would be nothing there today,” Schneier says today. “But instead everyone wanted to come.”

Schneier left Park East in the spring of 1993 to work full time on the Hampton Synagogue. Meanwhile, he had divorced, and that summer he married Toby Gotesman, the daughter of a prominent Orthodox family in Portland, Oregon. The new Mrs. Schneier jumped into the Hamptons project with gusto, taking on the traditional rabbi’s wife title of “rebbetzin.” The following summer, the Hampton Synagogue opened its own building just off the main drag in Westhampton Beach with help from a donor base that included Steven Spielberg, who helped dedicate the 350-seat sanctuary in August 1994. Spielberg also gave generously to Schneier’s Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. By 1998 Schneier had become president of the New York Board of Rabbis, an organization representing 800 congregations in and around the city. He told the New York Times he hoped to establish a parallel body in Israel and began laying the groundwork for a national North American Board of Rabbis. Still just shy of his 40th birthday, Schneier was already one of the leading lights of the American rabbinate, an institution-builder with the star power and public recognition he had always craved.

***

As his enterprises have grown, Schneier has skillfully managed to walk a tightrope between engaging with as broad a constituency as possible and staying within the boundaries of accepted practice for an Orthodox rabbi. A few years ago, Schneier tried to introduce a Shabbat bus service—the Shab-bus—that would circulate around the Hamptons, on the theory that it could be the rolling equivalent of a Shabbat elevator. “These are progressive steps,” Schneier acknowledged. “I believe that within the halachic system we can make things easier and more accessible.”

Some critics have long pegged the Hampton Synagogue—which never formally joined the Orthodox Union, though the organization includes the congregation in the local listing guide on its website—as too lenient about its standards of observance, from its stylized low metal mechitza barrier to the kinds of people who are invited to speak. “I cannot understand why a shul that calls itself Orthodox feels the need to run programs that simply counter the values and rules of Jewish law,” a rabbi named Reuven Spolter, a former executive board member of the Orthodox movement’s Rabbinical Council of America, blogged last month, referring to an upcoming evening with the journalists Steve and Cokie Roberts, who will be talking about their successful interfaith marriage. But Schneier’s defenders say he is being admirably creative. “You can’t argue with success,” said Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice-president of the New York Board of Rabbis. “What were the Hamptons before Rabbi Schneier arrived, and what is it after? You have to give credit to someone who has been able to build that.” When I remarked that most Jews outside of New York probably hadn’t heard of Schneier, Potasnik quipped, “Don’t tell him that.” Another rabbi who had been involved in one of Schneier’s interfaith projects through his foundation made a similar observation: “For him, it’s all about that picture in the New York Times, not about the work on the ground.”

Regardless, what seems obvious is that Schneier’s lifestyle depends on maintaining the attentions, and the patronage, of the very rich. The rabbi makes more than $500,000 a year: He was paid $227,596 by his foundation in 2009, the most recent year for which tax records are available, and told me he earns $300,000 a year from the synagogue, which also carries the mortgage on his house in the Hamptons. But he spends the bulk of his time with multimillionaires, which can make even well-off people feel poor. In March, after a press conference on Capitol Hill, where Schneier joined religious leaders of different faiths to protest Rep. Peter King’s controversial hearings on Muslim radicalization, I complimented Schneier on his tie, which he flipped over to reveal the Hermès label. He added that he has more than 100 others in his collection—and then later asked me, repeatedly, not to mention it, and insisted that most of the ties were gifts. “They’ll say that’s where the money went,” he said, in a voice that sounded only half-joking.

Continue reading: the Ten Commandments, Steven Spielberg, and working as an ally of the black community. Or view as a single page.

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Allison Hoffman is a senior writer for Tablet Magazine.
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  • Mr Mel

    His social behavior is that of a Teenager and not of a prominent Rabbi. Do as I say not as I do.

  • MJ Rosenberg

    Another excellent profile by Hoffman and the kind of piece we only get in Tablet.
    It seems like the rabbi may be too interested in bling but that does not affect my view of him.
    In a community where humanitarianism often extends only to our own, Rabbi Schneier consistently demonstrates that although charity begins at home, it must not end there.
    A tiny people cannot exist as an island of ethnic self-absorption. Nor can it survive if it goes out of its way to deem the rest of the world our enemies.
    Rabbi Schneier understands that. He reaches out, and reminds the world that not all Jews consider the “light unto the nations” role as passe.
    He is an anti- anti-semitism machine. Wherever he goes, people think more highly of Jews.
    He is entitled to all the Hermes ties he needs.

  • mark bernheim

    the article is a good example of ambivalence in all its ambivalencies. how to portray someone with obvious human weaknesses as we all have, who yet manages to accomplish significance. that he deals with the rich and famous does not mean he is not aware of who they are, and who he remains. if you cannot decide at the end of the piece what to think about him, rabbi or not, that i would say means the piece succeeds. and i cannot say what i think, so it worked for me. I am not sure i would like to sit next to him on a long flight, but then again, he’s be full of interesting stories, wouldn’t he?

    BUT: he asked not to have the zillion chintzy ties mentioned, and there they are! is that quite fair?? maybe now he’ll find something else to collect other than wives and cravats….

  • D’vorah

    This man disgusts me. He is the kind of rabbi that gives Jews the world over a black eye and should be ashamed of himself. As to his congregation? This man has no moral currency and the fact that they can be taken in by him says a great deal about them. I’ll bet he eats pork on Saturdays!

  • Cypress

    The otherwise informative article neglects to mention that one of Schneier’s major backers, former Westhampton congregant Dina Wein Reis, pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal charges that she duped corporations out of millions of dollars.

  • http://davidbarnahum.com David E Y Sarna

    Rabbi Schneir is #26 on the list, apparently. See http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2809/1/

  • len

    David: #26 is his father.

  • http://www.bethsurdut.com Beth Surdut

    The expectations we have of rabbis–that they not only be learned, kind, thoughtful,honest,decent people, but also perfect,is a recipe for disappointment. I have met lovely congregations led by severely flawed, ego-driven rabbis with pathetic personal lives.Yet these same rabbis fill,or more precisely, they act the part of caring spiritual leaders. For some people, that suffices. Congregations are more about the members of the community than one man or woman paid to lead a service.

  • Harold

    “After being told that his favorite meal—tuna tartare—was unavailable on the [non-kosher] dinner menu, Schneier ordered a beet salad and a mushroom risotto, which in deference to kashrut he asked to have prepared with a vegan base.”

    So in addition to being a public adulterer, he follows his own form of public non-kashrut. What else does he have to do to be finally expelled from the RCA — murder someone?

  • http://kennethellman.com kenneth ellman

    In reference to the article about Rabbi Marc Schneier. I think the article is well done and clear.
    If he violated the rules of the RCA, then the RCA should enforce that in an appropriate manner even if it means expulsion. That is a decision for the RCA and the standards they want their membership to uphold. The Jewish people, as any people need to know that those who teach and care for others and who are recognized as Rabbi of the Congregation, are held to a standard that fosters confidence and trust in their ability. His conduct as that of many people (not so unusual whether in the religious or secular world) shows a character defect that would cause me to not want him as my Rabbi. There is an obligation you commit to when you become a Rabbi. It is not an easy path. Since a Rabbi is a teacher and leader who should be safeguarding his community as best as he can, their may be a sacrifice by those who choose this calling. The rewards can be great for the right man but the rewards are not for everyone. So his conduct would make me very uncomfortable.
    However to a large extent it is a decision for the Congregation. It is the Congregation that must determine the benefits and disadvantages of having such a Rabbi and leader. The Rabbi chosen says as much about the Congregation as it does about the Rabbi. It must also be kept in mind that in our way, a Rabbi is still nothing more than a man with all the good and bad that human beings have to offer each other and we must not forget that. The excuse of mental illness though is a very poor explanation for choices he made.
    Kenneth Ellman
    email: ke@kennethellman.com

  • hampton vacationer

    I think the congregants are relieved to know the affair is with a woman and a great way to kill all the other rumors about his preference. Seems he has a great strategist for such things by upping the ante — what a brilliant defense– I have bipolar depression (no real surprise there) and will not comment on rumors etc.!! Who does the rabbis PR? He never fails to keep emerging from scandals, or almost scandals, unscathed.

    Even here, it seems like his 3rd marriage ended because of the xrebetzen’s affair. Well it may have been because the rabbi turned cold and the woman decided she had enough and needed human touch once the white powder couldn’t fill that void, and so she wanted out. If anyone deserves the constructive abandonment divorce, it seemed this was the one. But there were rumors about his straying at the time too… that no woman could satisfy him… and the insiders were amazed at how he was like teflon and avoided a bigger scandal back then by throwing it onto his chazzan to carry his burden.

    I feel sorry for all the ex-wives. Honest now Tobi Rubenstein, what did you really think? He found true love with you? You’d be at shabbat dinner and he’d sit their cold for several hours not even saying a word to you. Couldn’t understand how you allowed yourself to go down that path and still marry him. You looked miserable and desperate. Even with his “sex in the city” Purim shpiel you didn’t get it.. until the glass ceiling came crashing down on your head, literally. Next time YOU rise up and break that glass ceiling yourself! Don’t feel bad, he looks like a lousy fat slimey kisser.

  • DRW

    He strikes me as exactly the kind of Rabbi lampooned in Woody Allen movies and Larry David’s shows.

  • g-d fearing jew

    After reading your article, I immediately felt physically ill and vomited.
    I have no words for the Hillul Hashem this so-called “Prominent Rabbi” continues to demonstrate in a very “public” fashion.
    Rabbi Marc Schnier clearly demonstrates that he is “committed” to conducting himself anyway he wishes to in both his personal and public life and is above upholding the tenets, not only of the magnificent dynasty from which he descends, but indeed the basic principles on which centuries of Jewish Scholars, Teachers, Doctors and Philosophers have worked against overwhelming obstacles to ensure the continuity of the people they serve and advise in every aspect of life
    The magnitude of devastation that results from validating someone who repeatedly demonstrates a callous disregard for common decency, modesty, humility, truth, respect for others (women in particular) and the very trust position from which he has been able to continue mocking what we hold precious is beyond measure.
    Jews are commanded to uphold a high standard both ethically and morally in every arena.
    At a time when so many families are struggling to raise respectful children and infuse them with the tools to navigate a turbulent world, communities are devastated financially resulting in increased stress-related illnesses, behavioral problems and marriage breakdowns are destroying the very fabric of our people, this man smirks and laughs in the face of not only those he represents publicly but his own family.
    How does any self-respecting Rabbi stand on a pulpit giving a holiday address while his wife stands in a courtroom trying to forestall a “pre-meditated eviction” Rosh Hashana Eve?
    Further, how does any man have the “chutzpah” to cheat, manipulate, and use yet another “vulnerable” woman to further his own skewed agenda?
    To dare to “explain away” this behavior using a diagnosis of “bipolar disorder” should be evidence enough to immediately ask him to step down and seek treatment for an indefinite period.

  • Alan H Zwiebel

    I still maintain that his malady is that he is “bi-penile”.

  • pinky613

    Allison’s article should strike a cord in every decent human being and inspire Jews of every tradition to come together and “dethrone this evil prince”.
    Someone should advise Rabbi Marc Shnier that “the guardian of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps!”
    He is exactly what the Jewish Community worldwide does not need as we prepare to greet Moshiach.
    In my humble opinion, those who fill “his” coffers with large donations, grant him entre into the lives of the rich and famous as their “chosen” ambassador, and listen to Holy words spoken by a man who continues to prey on whatever and whomever he feels like and “certifies” it as “kosher” by his own standards….need their heads read!
    Madoff, Strauss-Kahn and now “Rabbi” Marc Shnier…
    One, Two, Three strikes you’re out!
    It is time that every self-respecting Jew stand up and be counted as saying “No More” and demanding that he and those of his ilk are removed permanently from the Rabbinate or whatever public office they hold that denigrates Torah and Yiddishkeit.

  • Steven

    Summers out here in Westhampton Beach have been tremendous thanks, in large part, to Marc. His congregation loves him, and the Hampton Synagogue is the best ticket in town. We have an incredible author series and the Sabbath service is unmatched. There is always a governor or a diplomat visiting. It’s all really interesting and it’s free.

    Of course there is (and always has been a lot of jealousy out there. The bottom line is many of the people who talk about Marc don’t really know him. Unless you’re part of the scene, you just won’t get it. The congregation keeps growing and growing, but it’s not for everyone. I think the core congregation has a lot of self-confidence, and they enjoy the Rabbi.

    The summer events are open to the public and people should come out and experience the whole thing first hand. There is nothing like the Hampton Synagogue, and we’re really grateful to Marc Schneier for his vision and his fortitude. Westhampton is the best Hampton.

  • Gitty Gitty Bang Bang

    I was busy all week reading about Anthony Weiner. What a welcome respite!

  • Hersh Adlerstein

    Why do we not realize that Jews are like our Christian neighbors in their behavior patterns? It took many years for the Roman Catholic Church to stop covering the crimes of pedophile and/or sexually voracious priests, and those of my generation recall the Protestant clergy who were, many years ago, so vividly exposed in Sinclair Lewis’s ELMER GANTRY and later in the film. Rabbis are human and suffer the same behavioral maladies. I personally knew three rabbis, in the same city, who committed public adultery, and interestingly enough were Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. Without judging this individual, what bothers me is that Jewish communal leaders seem to continue covering for him. Why? For fear of his powerful fundraising ability?

  • Lisa Silverman

    About the ties: Are there “rules” of journalists when they are interviewing someone? I don’t know this rabbi at all, but if a guy repeatedly asks you not to mention something and then, davka, you tell everyone, do you think it will be hard to get future interview subjects willing to talk to Tablet magazine?

  • http://www.rabbidov.com Rabbi Dov

    Anthony Weiner has only two weeks to get healed during his leave of absence. This article reflects that Rabbi Schneier has the unique pastoral gifts to heal him in a fortnight. Weiner is a Page Six regular, with incredible political contacts and Hollywood contacts, access to enormous amounts of money in the liberal Democrat Jewish community — just like Rabbi Marc. Weiner even is a personal practitioner of Moslem-Jewish understanding, in the Cokie Roberts model, a perfect fit for Rabbi Marc’s vision of understanding.

    Rabbi Schneier’s vapid congregation, weighted in gold and worshipping Hermes,is perfect for him: just keep the bling rolling in, the numbers growing, the celebrities massaged, and be enough a jet-setter himself so that the celebs in the aisles not be ashamed to sit among his flock.
    This Yom Kippur, would it not be smashing if, when Schneier opens the ark at Kol Nidre, out pops — yes! — Anthony Weiner himself, hiding inside, cured, healed, returned to his roots, fasting not only on Ramadan as he does in solidarity with Huna but also on another day. Imagine the inches of coverage on Page Six!

    BTW — Although the article was beautifully crafted, the writer violated a cardinal rule of journalist ethics. The guy bragged on his tie label, a vain dolt needing to impress, but he did ask that the matter be maintained off-the-record. That request should have been honored. The article certainly included ample alternative bases for readers to have pity on him and to harbor the deepest of contempt for the superficial fools among American Jewry’s Beautiful People who find in such a clownish caricature a spiritual balm, their nexus to the Divine. Slim-Fast, indeed.

  • Dani

    “RabbiDov” – leave your condemnation of the congregation until you have actually met the people here. One of the people interviewed, Harvey Kaylie, supports Ohel (you may have heard of Camp Kaylie?) as well as a myriad of other wonderful organizations. These people are not celebrities, and they are not lacking in moral fiber. Your judgmental attitude says far more about you than it does them.

  • Jim M

    Musical chairs? Rabbi Schneier Superstar? http://youtu.be/mp0cUH4YEEs

  • shushan

    In the old days a schmuck would have gotten a beating from the boys in the neighborhood and learned his lesson. Today garbage like shnorror are allowed to become leaders and lead the gullible into oblivion

  • shushan

    even a shonda like nybr dictator for life joe ‘shecky’ potasnik says Oy Vey when he reads a story about schneirer

  • Ami

    1-Anyone really believe he is descended from 18 generations of Rabbis when most of us cant trace our lineage back past the 1800′s.
    2-He reminds me of bernie madoff without the good looking wife.
    3-a man married 4 times is sick. They say if you divorce once than possibly its the woman, if you divorce twice perhaps you just have bad luck in finding a spouse, BUT 3 or more marriages and its definitely YOU. Schneier is a disgrace and a shonda.
    4- why would any Jewish organization allow an admitted mentally ill fellow be one of its leaders, unless the so called Jewish organization is really trying to destroy Jews from within.
    5- 4 marriages and only 1 child. It appears anthony isnt the only one with a weiner problem.
    6-why would a rabbi give his kid a goy name like brendan unless he is a 5th column fake convert to christianity pretending to be a rabbi.
    Although I guess the name brendan is not as bad as shecky potasnik naming his kid harrison.
    7-why would Jews continue to attend and finance the works of this shonda?
    8- he may have been married 4 times to women but by the look on his face I bet he’d rather be married to barney frank. I aint never seen a more fagela looking man than marc.
    9-would a real rabbi eat anything in a non kosher restaurant, he is a faker
    10- newsweek like time is an anti semitic rag and anybody they hold up as a Jewish leader you can be sure is a hofjuden kapo with more skeletons in his closet than you can shake a lulav at.
    11-lastly he is obviously a con artist type with a huge ego. This type will do to orthodox Jewry what potasnik and yoffie have done to conservative and reformed Jewry..ie a self inflicted Holocaust!

  • Warren Z

    Who knew the ‘rabbi’ has a blog.www.614thcommandment.blogspot.com

  • Dan

    Steven at 5:40 above is writing a satire or is he serious? I can’t tell. Could he possibly be so self unaware?

  • Get a Clue Dan!

    Dan -

    Sounds like someone’s publicist monitoring the comments and responding.

  • Jonathan Lewis

    Marc’s father Arthur Schneier started out in a small Brooklyn synagague, B’nai Jacob. I wonder what might have happened to Marc if they had stayed in that smaller less fianancially motivated world?

  • Rebecca

    eh, so the guy is a rabbi to the rich and famous and behaves as such. So what? I’m not agreeing with his behavior by any means but he has a split personality: on the one hand he’s appearing to stand up/speak for Jews and Jewish issues, gives back to the community – hopefully to those who are several tax brackets lower than he is. On the other hand, he is tacky, loud and self centered, always looks for the next opportunity to get in a face shot and a hand shake, and pretends to be Orthodox. Eh, there are worse out there. And “we” as a community have always had good, bad, show offs, studious types. We are no different than anyone else. Now if he goes around promoting his version of Judaism as if it represents me, (like Chabad), then I would have a problem with him. At the moment though, he is just another rich, stuck up American Jew who, other than the religion, has nothing in common with me. I mean who “buys” an endangered animal as a anniversary gift and brags about it? TACKY!! but not unique. At least the poor animal is going to be taken care of, unlike the rich arabs who buy and sell endangered species for fun.

  • Rabbi Tony Jutner

    Rabbi Schreier nned to acknowledge my as the leader of New Judaism and subscribe to its tenets of Economic Justice, Social Justice, and Right of Return of Endgenous inhabitants, especially the Palestinians. Then he will have done tshuva

  • xxx

    So when o when does that crazy congregation get rid of him?
    How many times can u keep violating Jewish law for those insane folk to throw him away?
    Does the whole place have access to his meds?
    Does the whole place have his disease of the soul?
    Does G’d have to just strike down a MACAH on that place?
    THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ON!

  • xrebitz3

    I TOLD U SOOOO!
    now the joke is on you out there in the front pew.
    why bother praying at all…break out a golden calf and have a big party for yourselves!

  • Ava

    “The personal side does not seem to have impaired his ability to do his work,” said Michael Schneider, the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress.”

    What?! He’s a rabbi! He’s supposed to council people on the state of their souls and his soul is obviously very sick. He seems like an egotist with no real desire to change.

    I think we are judged not by how we deal with the masses (which is often just more food for the ego), but how we deal with those closest to us. This man has obviously hurt a lot of people, to an extent not so obvious from the brief tabloid reports. Shame on the so-called “Jewish World Congress.” Just more proof that you can wipe your butt with the so-called Newsweek list. I think it’s time to stop ranking rabbis, and instead give them space to do their real jobs and attend to their private lives.

  • jewess

    Remember in the time of the Holy Temple…
    They used to cast aside the people with ZARAAT…not just a skin disease but a soul disease!
    Cast out this man/noman from our midst.
    For his words and actions will influence generations to come.

  • wife#????

    it seems that there is an open invitation to all women to go to the Hampton Syng and get a new man….The Rabbi has given it a OU! stamp of approval! They all have lots of money and ties! the MARRIED ones are the best!……………Seriously, is this what we have produced as JEWISH LEADERS?????

  • souless

    @wife#???..lets book a SHABUS TOUR for the women !!!!!! LOL! this RABBIWAANABE LUNATIC is pathetic at best…I sure hope you were not one of his victims!
    P.S. Completely unappealing to any species!

  • hampton syng secret society

    Having built a home there to be part of the community,We are finally disgusted to a point of no return.
    It started off as a well meaning Jewish oasis in the Hamptons.
    Over the years, wives, asst rabbis, cantors and numerous scandals later,WE have reached the end.
    OUR shame for having such a leader is felt by many in the shul.
    We wont speak out as a group..just leave one by one.
    Unbuild, as we did build, the place we thought was home to G’d.
    No longer a home for G;d or anyone..anymore

    i

  • jdate

    the RCA should take him out.
    Isnt this guys behavior alot worse than ordaining a woman?
    Or are we in Saudia Arabia?

  • saddened

    it is a real shame that this man continues to represent Jews.
    He should made to step down.
    In any other place or religion or situation, he would have been fired by now.
    It just shows what a depraved world we live in.
    His lack of morals and punishment is a mere reflection of our own diseased society.
    Not even addressing an apology or humility from this overgrown stuffed toy , that has been ordained!
    Shame on the RCA and same on WJC and any other org that finds him suitable for any job.
    What a horrible example for the rest of the world to see.

  • jacob

    meh…i agree with the above comments that the editor and writer should have kept to some journalistic standards about the tie comment. but lately standards has been lacking in alot of pieces here recently…

    other than that..I was shocked that some jew (not Marc) would throw a party for Mahmoud Abbas..its like the most random thing…hey dear..lets throw a party a invite Mahmoud Abbas..lol..

  • saddened

    @Jacob..if thats ALL that bothers you…then you are just the type of idiot that attends that crazy plc.
    Someday , you will recover from drinking the poison!
    lets hope its not too late!
    p.s. where you also the editor of the porno tapes?

  • chanta

    Look this guy is a gay fat pig!
    Gotesman schneier built him lock, stock, and barrel
    the others?
    just notches in his fat gucci belt

  • saddened

    @chanta…each wife served a purpose to him!
    This last one really knew how to dress!
    The crazy syng watched her like a fashion show.
    The gay pig could not keep up with her..or afford her.
    So he found a new one that looks like she needs a good grooming lesson.
    NEXT!

  • omg

    did anyone catch page six today?
    I guess the Rabbi 2tone got what he asked for..always loves his page six.
    The 4 wife is gonna nail him to the cross on national tv
    What a world!!!!!

  • omg

    i am sorry that wife #4 cant talk YET!
    Looking forward to what she will have to say, when she can!
    We are all much more curious than before.

  • chanta

    hello!
    The 4th wife has a PENIS!
    rubinstein is a hermaphrodite!
    Where have all of you been ?

  • omg

    wow…then he should have stuck with her,,,cause the good gay rabbi needs PENIS only!

  • Aaron

    Marc Schneier’s purpose in life is the exaltation of Marc Schneier. His PR manager inserts him into as many charitable organizations as will have him, in the most prominent positions that can be arranged, but Marc’s contribution is always startlingly lightweight. (Ditto his authorship.) This characteristic, combined with his well-publicized moral lapses, make an outsider wonder how such a nebbish could attain such a place of prominence.

    If a group’s “spokesman” is a manipulative, self-promoting mediocrity, folks think he is representative of the group. Maybe he is.

  • omg

    Which group does he represent?
    1.Rabbinical Gay Marriage Reform?
    2.Mental Disorder as the ultimate Defense?
    3.Hermes Collection Agency?
    4.Save The TUNA TARTARE?
    5.Jews against The Ten Commandments?
    6.Newsweek”s Top Ten Adulterers?
    7.Wives without a Cause?
    8.Diet of Unwanted Women?
    9.Make all Restaurants Kosher?
    10.President of the Destruction of The Hampton Syng?

  • chanta

    You people just dont get it!
    The 3rd wife( toby gotesman schneier) literally built him from nothing !

  • omg

    That is not much to b proud of CHANTA!

  • http://www.directsoccer.org nike mercurial vapor superfly iii

    The subsequent time I learn a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I imply, I do know it was my choice to read, but I truly thought youd have something attention-grabbing to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you can fix for those who werent too busy looking for attention.

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Beachhead

Rabbi Marc Schneier’s Hampton Synagogue caters to New York’s wealthiest at their summer playground. As his personal life spun out of control and into the tabloids, they returned the favor by closing ranks around him.