Dear All,
At
this point you are all aware of the proceedings between Rabbi Greenman
and myself. The fact that this has reached this point is difficult for
me to comprehend. Never did I expect such viciousness and egregiousness
to occur! I am appealing to you again to intervene and stop this madness
from continuing.
Following
is some more information attesting to the fact that Yitz was desperate
for a potential scapegoat to justify the dwindling accounts of Aish NY.
Over the last five years or so, Aish NY has consistently run a deficit ,
spending more than they brought in, tapping into their savings account
to sustain operations. It became far easier to blame everything on me
than to take personal responsibility for the situation. Yitz's mantra of
"How is it possible for Jacob to be so rich?" can go only so far. At
the end of the day, there is a paper trail and one needs to only go
through all the
documentation to see that as I stated before, we were fortunate to
purchase real estate over 15 years ago, that B"H appreciated
tremendously in value. Virtually all our net income can be traced to
real estate appreciation.
______________________________________________________________
On Friday, November 1, 2013 2:16 PM Rabbi Greenman wrote to my wife:
"In the recent past, ie the last 5 years my fundraising
has sunken [or so i thought] and our accounts started dwindling and I wondered
why. I never questioned your husband of stealing our money but rather I
questioned myself. Believing that Hashem had stopped bentching me, I
decided to continue my avodas HaKodesh elsewhere. Two months ago I went to
a VERY large institution and approached them discreetly about working for them
and bringing my staff onto theirs. We had several in depth meetings
and they were/ and still are, very interested in me leaving Aish and coming to
work for them. They had their most senior staff meet with me. They
responded unanimously that they want me to join and partially run their
team. I determined that this must be the hashgochos Hashem. I can
raise money for them and they will keep my staff [i had in mind to take your
husband along with me] and the money I raise will go towards kiruv.
It pained me [and leah] greatly that I would be leaving Aish [where i've been
for 30 years], but Hashem stopped bentching me [or so i thought] and therefore I
needed to make a move to maximize my efforts for the klal.
I was close to signing with them and BANG all of this
happened. Now I am very reluctant to sign with them and they are
wondering: "what happened with Yitz??" and I am keeping them at bay right
now. Hashgacha pratis."
Please
refer to the facts that I am presenting to you. I have enclosed the
list of every donation that Rabbi Greenman received since 2009 - thru
mid Sept. 2013 - As you have
seen in the above email, Rabbi Greenman is blaming me for his
precarious plunge in donations. As can be seen from the attached lists -
its ridiculous to say that I had anything to do with that. EVERY
donation we received was PROPERLY RECORDED AND PROCESSED. I challenge
anyone to come up with ANY discrepancy.
Our
budget was complex and an added complexity was that our internal
budget was partially based on the Jewish calendar and a budget year
included trips that
occurred in Jan. of the following year. That means that our budget year
didnt 'close' until April of the following year - as we were still
getting bills for the Jan. events thru April.
Here is a summary of Aish Connections Revenues / Expenses and comparisons to the audited financial statements:
| Total Revenues | Total Expenses | Net Income / Loss | Per Audited Financials | |
| Budget Yr. | Calendar Yr. | |||
| 2009 | $2,833,707.32 | $3,551,673.00 | -$717,965.68 | -$225,671.00 |
| 2010 | $3,299,059.14 | $4,039,512.00 | -$740,452.86 | -$1,427,049.00 |
| 2011 | $2,542,602.60 | $4,087,000.00 | -$1,544,397.40 | -$1,029,636.00 |
| 2012 | $1,923,897.50 | $2,884,150.00 | -$960,252.50 | -$800,045.00 |
| 2013 – thru Sept. 2013 | $1,109,520.00 | $3,284,861.00 | -$2,175,341.00 | |
| 2013 Exp. Projected thru end of 2013 | ||||
| Total 2009-2012: | -$3,963,068.44 | -$3,482,401.00 | ||
| Difference being the Budget Yr. Vs. Calendar yr. (timing of recognition of Income and Expenses) | ||||
The list of all the
donations is attached (you can also get it with this link Yitz's donors $1K and up 2009 thru Sept 2013.xls - Google Drive)
. It was sorted by date and than another list by the donor (look at the
tabs). Please let me know if you find ANY discrepancy. I also would
reiterate that the budget expenditures were always VERY carefully
reviewed by Nik Davidson and David Markowitz - every expense dollar that
was put on the budget was reviewed multiple times by the department
heads and than by the COO and than finally by Rabbi Greenman.
Preview by
Yahoo
| |||||
Much
of the decline in donations can be traced to Mr. Anonymous. Aish NY as
of 2010 started to deal with his foundation head, Rabbi Charendorff, who
insisted on tying donations to actual programming - not to general
operations. The decline in the donations was hard to adjust to as mostly
the budget was tied to salaries.
Aish
NY is a very top heavy organization. The Exec. Director's salary of
about $400K, the COO at $200K, Rabbi Markowitz at $150K, the other
rabbis at an average of $120K each consumed far in excess of half the
total budget.
Any accountant
reviewing Aish NY accounting needs to understand the
relationships between the different 'departments' such as Aish NY (Connections), Aish UK,
Inspire, Aish Center etc. before drawing any conclusions.
Another
point that Rabbi Greenman discusses is his desire to move on to lead
another organization. That's - Ohr Israel - a yeshiva in Monsey, and in
fact recently funneled over 100K to them - from Aish NY budget.
Rabbi
Greenman's refusal to have an audit done, blaming me without giving me
the benefit of the doubt, or even questioning me should be an indication
to what is going on here.
In
the court documents, Aish NY's attorneys suggests that even if I can
PROVE now that I have done nothing wrong it should not change the
court's view and the court should blindly rubber stamp
this faulty arbitration.
PLEASE don't let this happen.
How can you? All I am asking is a fair and impartial opportunity to
prove what I have said repeatedly. This arbitration was from the
beginning an outright attempt to discredit and intimidate me with
blatant disregard to basic halachah and mentchlichkeit, to say the
least.
I am asking that this lawsuit be suspended.
Until I am heard, it is not appropriate for Rabbi Greenman to say one
sidedly that this is all a "slam dunk" win for him. After 17 years of
devoted service to Aish Hatorah, you owe me this minimum courtesy.
"Lo taamod al dam rayecha".
I
have started a secured blog - by invitation only - that shows some of
the history of this 'arbitration' and the law suit trying to legalize
the
arbitration award against me. This claim is without merit. G-D willing
we will get it dismissed without causing Chilul HaShem.
Jacob Fetman
646 261 0200
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