Live Breaking News & Updates on Rabbi Sanford Ragins

When Rabbi Sheldom Zimmerman was suspended by the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 2000 and simultaneously stepped down as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, even many insiders at the Reform movement’s flagship institutions had no idea of the severity or even the real nature of his offense.
The official word from the ethics committee was inappropriate “personal relationships.” But very few people knew that one involved a congregant at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue who he started seducing when she was a teenager.
“I didn’t know, and I never put things together that it involved a sexual encounter of any kind,” Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, who was the editor of the rabbinic group’s quarterly journal, recalled in a recent interview. “That was never revealed to us at that time.” ....

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