{"id":7793,"date":"2013-06-23T21:19:33","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T03:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=7793"},"modified":"2013-06-23T21:19:33","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T03:19:33","slug":"rabbi-metzger-suspends-himself-from-some-duties-during-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/rabbi-metzger-suspends-himself-from-some-duties-during-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbi Metzger suspends himself from some duties during probe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>JERUSALEM (JTA) &#8212; Israel\u2019s Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, has suspended himself from some of his duties following his arrest on corruption charges.<\/p>\n<p>Metzger said Sunday that he will suspend himself from the presidency of the\u00a0 Chief Rabbinate Council and will not attend its meetings, as well as his position as a Rabbinical High Court judge.<\/p>\n<p>The suspensions are for the duration of the investigation, he said in his announcement from his lawyers to Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Religious Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rabbi understands that suspending himself is the right thing to do from a public perspective,\u201d his attorneys said while emphasizing that Metzger maintains his innocence.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators from the National Fraud Squad raided Metzger\u2019s home and offices last week as part of a bribery, fraud, money-laundering and breach-of-trust case. Police suspect Metzger pocketed donations, which Metzger denies.<\/p>\n<p>Metzger is forbidden to make contact with either of the other suspects in the case &#8212; Haim Nissan Eisenshtat, who worked for years as Metzger\u2019s driver and personal assistant, and Simcha Karkovsky, the manager of the Beit Hatavshil charity in Bnei Brak.<\/p>\n<p>Following a months-long undercover investigation, officers went public on June 20, arresting the three suspects and seizing documents, computers and other materials from Metzger\u2019s home and office.<\/p>\n<p>Metzger was released to five days of house arrest after being questioned for 10 hours. His term as Ashekenazi chief rabbi ends in the coming months.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Rabbi%20Metzger%20suspends%20himself%20from%20some%20duties%20during%20probe\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3024,1984,8781,8790,8795,8788,3023],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7795,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7793\/revisions\/7795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}