Jewish Charity Closed Over Fraud Charges

A judge has ordered the closure and liquidation of a Jewish charity in San Francisco accused of fraud, including allowing its rabbi founder to divert money for a home and his son’s $40,000 bar mitzvah.

Superior Court Judge William Cahill issued a preliminary injunction this week at the request of the state attorney general’s office.

The judge did allow the Jewish Educational Center to continue operating its San Francisco school for Russian immigrant children.

“The more we look and the more we audit, the more money we come up with,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Belinda Johns, who accused the center of diverting donated money for noncharitable uses, a violation of charitable trust laws.

Charity attorney Carol Ruth Silver called the decision premature and said the ruling will end up hurting the children and the elderly who attend the school.

The charity made its money by advertising for old cars, repairing them and reselling the vehicles at auction. The center said the money was to go toward seriously ill children, including Ukrainian children suffering from radiation sickness from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Charity founder Rabbi Bentziyon Pil and his wife, Matti Plotkin, are accused in the state’s suit of using donated money to buy a $180,000 home and spent $40,000 on their son’s bar mitzvah.