Rivky Stein & Yoel Weiss:Rivky Stein's "Beit Din" - Forgery in the name of a "higher calling"

Guest Post by RaP:

Once upon a time, forgery was an art that called for skill. In today's computerized world anyone can copy, create or photoshop almost anything. In recent years there has been a rise of printing falsified documents that have Halachic ramifications. It is now very easy for anyone to "copy and paste" the signatures of the most famous rabbis or create ex nihilo cyber and fictitious rabbis as if in a "movie". Once scanned, Halachicaly important documents can be easily forged and reproduced to suit almost any need or whim, especially for a "higher calling" made to fit!

Over the few years that this blog has been in existence such things have not been uncommon. During the time of the Tropper and EJF scandals concerning conversions, so-called Halachic "guidelines," "statements" and "declarations" came up from nowhere by forging the signatures of rabbis, manufactured out of thin air by means of photoshopping in order to prop up a point of view attacking the standing and positions of other rabbis deemed not sufficiently strict enough. All in the name of the higher calling of "stricter standards"! In another instance, even though a famous rosh yeshiva had requested that his signature not be used and removed from supposed declarations online, they were not removed in spite of that rosh yeshiva issuing a call and letter to say the exact opposite of what others were printing and posting, all in the name of the higher calling of "helping" a woman get her Jewish divorce.

Another instance from recent years is when a supposed "kol koreh" (signed notification made public and posted on street corners) was circulated with supposedly dozens of signatures against a popular Hasidic singer who was forced to cancel an expensive concert. Even after a number of rosh yeshivas and rabbis made it very clear that their signatures were forged, nothing was done to retract because, naturally, it was all for a "higher cause" of stopping concerts deemed "not frum enough" that made it "kosher" even if it was a provable prefabricated lie!

Now, with the proponents of those fighting for Rivky Stein to obtain her get (Jewish divorce), this phenomenon of forgery of Halachically important documents appears to have again reared its ugly head and risen to new heights of absurdity, with the seeming "manufacture" out of thin air of a fictitious "Beit Din" (court that rules on Halachic matters), complete with fake "summonses" and letters of "excommunication" for the one who supposedly defied this figment of someone's imagination. All this of course is done in the name of the "higher cause" of helping a suffering woman win her freedom from the father of her children.

What the forgers seem to forget in every case, is that sooner or later there is going to be a discovery by the public that documents were forged, especially serious documents with Halachic ramifications, and in every case the ones behind the forgery were revealed to be for what they are, not knights in shining armor fighting for a "higher cause" but just manipulative and desperate fools who deluded themselves that they can count on the world's gullibility to swallow their forgeries forever.