Happy Fire Burning the Baal Teshuvah: The Deceit of Aish and Ohr Somayach

Guest Post by Radloh!

I worked for a major yeshiva in Jerusalem first as a recruiter then as a teacher. I was privy to the internal goings-on of these two institutions who claim to speak in the name of God and the Torah. Growing up Chabad, I did have a natural inclination to negate Misnagdim as an entity of truth. Teaching in Jerusalem, I got to know hundreds of former secular Jews who were now Orthodox because of Aish and Ohr Somayach. In contrast to that, I also saw the value of other Misnagdic Ba’al Teshuvoh yeshivas, which catered to the true needs of these people in an honest good manner. I came to realize that there are good and bad in all worlds, Misnagdic and Chassidic.

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On the internet, Aish has worked hard to usurp the names of other Yeshivas so that students looking for a DIFFERENT yeshiva, will go instead to Aish. Other yeshivas have complained that Aish should not intentionally use others keywords and initiate programs to legitimize those keywords. Aish did not respond and continued this dishonest practice.

Their ugly recruiting efforts paints a vision for the student, that he will one day be holy and correct about everything if he only come to Jerusalem for a few weeks in the summer.

Then begins the indoctrination.

And this is the reason I am writing this article.

I have seen countless, good, normal, sympathetic, heartfelt, family-oriented, young American Jews turn into, for want of a better word, monsters. They become unfeeling zombies, deeply depressed, overly guilty about their past, often cutting off ties with family, and becoming neurotic ugly people.

You cannot speak to them anymore and they do not look you directly in the eye. Many of them blink a lot. I did manage to influence many students to leave Aish and Ohr Somayach to other Yeshivas, and they have all thanked me later, profusely.

I will finish with a story. A student of mine who was a star student at Aish had a brother. Now the brother was not a former film director with a moneyed future. Aish accepted both of them, since the one was even hooked up with David Lynch. After the Film student left Aish they called the unsuccessful brother and told him they have no place for his type of student. The direct words from the Aish Rabbi were, “You do not fit into our profile. We are looking for diamonds”.

The Aish philosophy of the Rational Jewish Man as being superior to all creations turns them into people deeply resentful towards their parents and hateful towards all secular Jews, in a very pernicious manner. They become overly halachic without any joy or emotional satisfaction, performing like robots what they are told to do. it is a system which slowly lobotomizes these people, in a sickening way. Something must be done about this for every day more people are getting pulled into this cult. A few former students have begun thinking of establishing a recovery program from these institutions. Details will soon be available on the net.

Radloh is a former recruiter and teacher at Mayanot, a modern-Chabad institute, and the editor of Seven Fat Cow.