{"id":91725,"date":"2026-02-27T15:51:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/?p=91725"},"modified":"2026-02-27T15:51:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:51:42","slug":"checks-charities-and-conversion-classes-what-the-epstein-files-show-about-jeffrey-epsteins-jewish-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/checks-charities-and-conversion-classes-what-the-epstein-files-show-about-jeffrey-epsteins-jewish-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Checks, charities and conversion classes: What the Epstein files show about Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s Jewish world"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ANDREW LAPIN<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 Sometime in the early 2010s, Jeffrey Epstein walked into Dr. Steven Kaplan\u2019s office for a root canal.<\/p>\n

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A protester holds up a picture of Jeffrey Epstein in front of a federal courthouse in New York City, July 8, 2019. (Stephanie Keith\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The procedure took some time and required multiple visits. The two men got to chatting. \u201cHe was just another guy, that\u2019s it,\u201d Kaplan recalled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The subject of Judaism came up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to put some yiddishkeit into him,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cI was telling him, \u2018You should meet a Jewish girl, because I think these girls are going to want you for your money.\u2019 He said, \u2018I would marry a Jewish girl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaplan, who says he was unaware at the time of Epstein\u2019s 2008 conviction and sentencing for sexual solicitation of a minor, sent Epstein several books on Judaism and offered to connect him with his rabbi. That meeting never happened, but when Epstein offered to help Kaplan fix up his office, a different proposal emerged: Kaplan asked his patient to donate to his children\u2019s Jewish school or any Jewish institution.<\/p>\n

Epstein agreed, telling Kaplan he would do it in honor of his mother. Soon his accounts wired $25,000 to Yeshiva Tifereth Moshe, in Queens, via the Jewish donation service MATCH. (He had initially promised $50,000, Kaplan said.) On a form for MATCH explaining his donation, included in the latest Justice Department release of files pertaining to his investigation, Epstein (or an assistant of his) wrote, \u201cI AM IMPRESSED WITH THE CHILDREN I HAVE SEEN FROM THE YESHIVA.\u201d<\/p>\n

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American economist and Harvard University Professor Lawrence H Summers during the interview at Taj Place on September 30, 2024 in New Delhi, India. (Raj K Raj\/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cMaybe that donation is helping him in the next world,\u201d Kaplan told JTA. He added that, by the tenets of Orthodox Judaism that stipulate 10% of one\u2019s earnings should go to tzedakah, or charity, Epstein\u2019s donation was \u201cnothing.\u201d A spokesperson for the yeshiva told JTA they didn\u2019t know anything about the Epstein connection. (JTA could not independently verify Kaplan\u2019s account, but in emails revealed in the Epstein files, Epstein\u2019s assistants relate conversations they had with Kaplan in which he urges the donation.)<\/p>\n

Kaplan said he was of two minds today about Epstein\u2019s support of Jewish causes throughout his life. \u201cHe still has a Jewish neshama,\u201d Kaplan said, using the Hebrew word for soul, of the man who had orchestrated a wide-ranging network of underaged escorts; maybe giving money to Jewish causes was still a net good, regardless of where that money came from.<\/p>\n

Yet Kaplan added that if Epstein were alive today and wanted to give to a yeshiva, knowing what he now knows about his crimes, he would have to ask his rabbi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know the answer to that,\u201d the endodontist said. \u201cI would go to the rabbi and say, \u2018Is it a mitzvah for him to give it? Or is it bad for us to take it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick boards Air Force One prior to departure from Richard B. Russell Regional Airport in Rome, Georgia, February 19, 2025. (Saul Loeb \/ AFP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Kaplan\u2019s ethical dilemma reflects one theme surfaced in the Epstein files released by Congress last month about the financier and convicted sex offender\u2019s connections to the Jewish world.<\/p>\n

Scrutinized for evidence of Epstein\u2019s misdeeds, the files have enabled armchair sleuthing about Epstein\u2019s associates, fueled antisemitic conspiracy theories and caused powerful players implicated in them to face new consequences \u2014 as when Harvard University broke ties with its former president, Larry Summers, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The files also offer a window into Epstein\u2019s workaday, small-scale networking, suggesting an almost obsessive effort to be involved in the affairs of his friends and associates. Jewish groups and individuals made up a significant share.<\/p>\n

The files show that Epstein made donations to and connections with Jewish causes with which he had little to no personal relationship. They also show that some Jewish groups benefitted from donations from Epstein even after his 2008 conviction for sexual solicitation of a minor \u2014 though it remains unclear whether they knew about it. Some have said specifically that they did not.<\/p>\n

Epstein served 13 months in a county jail following that conviction, which was largely swept under the rug thanks to a \u201csweetheart deal\u201d between Epstein and former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta. Many in the public had little knowledge of him or his misdeeds until investigative reporting about the deal emerged in 2018 and Epstein was arrested the following year.<\/p>\n

Epstein sought to leverage his Jewish largesse as he also sought to improve his public image both before and after his conviction, the latest files show.<\/p>\n

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An exterior view of a mansion once owned by disgraced US financier and late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on February 21, 2026. The mansion, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, was sold in 2021 for approximately $51 million. (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU \/ AFP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One email shows that he was seeking placement on the website eJewishPhilanthropy, then an industry newsletter for Jewish philanthropy insiders, for one of his foundations in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Foundation supports many jewish causes around the world as well as numerous Israli [sic] causes,\u201d an Epstein staffer wrote in a draft letter sent to Epstein for approval. (eJewishPhilanthropy did not publish an article on Epstein at the time, and the outlet said that it cannot find evidence of ever receiving such an email.)<\/p>\n

Describing Epstein as \u201ca financier and science philanthropist,\u201d they trumpeted his support of the Jewish National Fund, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Columbia Jewish Foundation, UJA- New York, and Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, along with a few yeshivas that were not Kaplan\u2019s. The bio goes on to note Epstein\u2019s \u201clong partnership with Leslie Wexner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s only note: \u201cno wexner affiliations please.\u201d Six years later, Wexner, a prominent philanthropist to Jewish causes, would reveal that he had broken ties with Epstein years earlier after a decades-long relationship and forced him to repay $100 million he said Epstein had stolen from him. Epstein had previously served as a director of the Wexner Foundation, which funds fellowships for young people entering a career in Jewish communal service and intensive adult education programs for volunteer board members of Jewish organizations.<\/p>\n

Now the latest Epstein files release has turned up the heat on Wexner, who again denied knowledge of Epstein\u2019s alleged crimes in a congressional deposition last week. It has also thrown other major funders of Jewish causes into the spotlight, including some for the first time.<\/p>\n

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Leon Botstein leading the American Symphony Orchestra in Johann Christian Bach’s “Symphony in G minor” in the program “Sons of Bach” at Alice Tully Hall on Thursday night, December 19, 2019 in New York, NY. (Hiroyuki Ito\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Epstein\u2019s Jewish giving far predated his 2008 conviction, and had no clear ideology. Some of it was already known before the latest files release. He and his partner and co-conspirator, Ghislane Maxwell, cultivated relationships with both FIDF, which raises money for the welfare of Israeli soldiers, and Seeds of Peace, which holds summer camps bringing together Israeli and Palestinian youth. They gave large sums to Hillel International and YIVO, as well as $500,000 to the religious day school Ramaz, and backed an Israeli charity that distributed aid to the needy. (That group, Ziv Tzedakah Fund, received $100,000 from Epstein in 2006 before shuttering less than a year later.)<\/p>\n

Other Jewish groups solicited Epstein for donations well after his conviction in 2008. Harvard Hillel, whose building Epstein had helped facilitate Wexner\u2019s funds to build, made personal appeals to him in 2010 and 2011 \u2014 stoked in part by a Jewish dean, Henry Rosovsky, who brokered Epstein\u2019s giving to Harvard Hillel and who Maxwell testified had received a \u201cmassage\u201d at Epstein\u2019s townhouse. (Rosovsky died in 2022.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe regret that anyone associated with our organization contacted Mr. Epstein during the years in question, and in the intervening years Harvard Hillel has revised our ethics standards to prohibit interactions of this nature,\u201d Harvard Hillel\u2019s current director, Jason Rubenstein, told the Harvard Crimson this month about the solicitations. Rubenstein added that the staff who sought the donations haven\u2019t been involved with the organization in over a decade.<\/p>\n

In 2015, a senior vice president of Touro College, the private Jewish New York institution, made a personal appeal to Epstein for him to fund a \u201cmedical incubator as well as resiliency in higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have read with interest about your prior philanthropic pursuits and the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation\u2019s generous contributions to various causes,\u201d wrote the official, Michael Newman. \u201cA donation to Touro College would further your foundation\u2019s goals in both education and medical research.\u201d A Touro spokesperson told JTA that Newman\u2019s letter \u201cwas a blind prospecting note to a philanthropist that went unanswered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Epstein\u2019s post-conviction Jewish giving was prosaic, the kind of mid-level donations made as favors that rarely trigger nonprofits\u2019 due diligence mechanisms.<\/p>\n

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U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) questions U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on February 11, 2026 in Washington, DC, during a hearing on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. (Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

UJA-Federation of New York, for example, accepted a $50,000 donation from Epstein in 2017. The occasion: the UJA\u2019s signature Wall Street Dinner, which drew more than 2,000 people and raised $29 million. Epstein made his donation in support of one of the honorees, Howard Lutnick, who was then chair of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald and is now President Donald Trump\u2019s commerce secretary. (Trump himself is prominently mentioned in the Epstein files.)<\/p>\n

Invited to fill a table at the event, Epstein declined, responding that Lutnick \u2014 who was also his next-door neighbor \u2014 could fill his. Lutnick recently admitted to a more extensive relationship with Epstein than he had previously publicized, including visiting his island after he had previously said he had cut ties; the White House has said it will stand by him.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the UJA declined to comment further to JTA on Epstein\u2019s donation.<\/p>\n

For his part, Epstein did not appear to be wedded to UJA as a cause. Emailing with Summers in 2019, six months before his arrest, he discouraged the former U.S. Treasury Secretary from donating to the New York federation: \u201cmuch rather you use you extra funds for your own benefit \u201e rather than the UJA,\u201d Epstein wrote. \u201cAgree re no UJA,\u201d Summers wrote back. \u201cPo=dering [sic] uses of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American Jewish Committee, meanwhile, invited Epstein to a gala dinner in 2013 in honor of Matthew Bronfman, a prominent Jewish philanthropist, though it was not clear whether he attended.<\/p>\n

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Nonprofit watchdogs are suggesting that groups that accepted Epstein\u2019s money after 2008 should take a harder look at their practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith respect to any donations accepted after the conviction, I find the compartmentalization truly astonishing,\u201d said Laurie Styron, of the watchdog Charity Watch. \u201cThrowing sex trafficking victims under the bus in service to revenue growth that will eventually support the mission of some unrelated charitable effort is not OK. Anyone who tries to justify this really needs to take a hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if they would feel differently about trading justice for money if it were their own daughter or mother or sister who was trafficked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, what should be done about Epstein\u2019s Jewish donations now is another thorny question. Some of the Wexner fellowship\u2019s alumni, responding to his Epstein ties, have begun lobbying for Wexner\u2019s name to be dropped from the program; a few have made public reparations for benefitting from Wexner\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

And Za\u2019akah, an advocacy group for Hasidic sexual abuse survivors, has harshly criticized the yeshivas and other Orthodox institutions that accepted funding from Epstein, even the ones that had no knowledge at the time of his conviction or the allegations against him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t come into the holiest place in Judaism and say, \u2018I\u2019m paying for this with the wages of prostitution,\u2019\u201d Asher Lovy, the group\u2019s founder, said in an Instagram video in which he cited Talmudic teachings.<\/p>\n

Lovy added, \u201cBy doing that, Epstein was afforded the opportunity to launder his reputation \u2014 the reputation he had rightly earned as a sex trafficker.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least one yeshiva that received an Epstein donation has sought to distance itself from him. The Texas Torah Institute, a yeshiva in Dallas, recently issued a statement saying it was unaware that Epstein had paid out $28,000 in tuition payments across 2008 and 2009.<\/p>\n

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Leslie Wexner, left, and Jeffrey Epstein were close for years. Epstein\u2019s scandal has dogged the billionaire Jewish philanthropist. (Laura E. Adkins\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cUntil the recent release by the Justice Department of over 3 million documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, Texas Torah Institute was unaware of any potential connection with Epstein,\u201d Rabbi Eliyahu Kaufmann, the school\u2019s dean, told the Houston Chronicle.<\/p>\n

Kaufmann added that the school \u201cconducted an internal review\u201d and determined that the checks were not signed by Epstein himself, but instead by his financial advisor Harry Beller \u2014 who also facilitated other yeshiva donations over the years, the Epstein files show. (Other Jewish schools that received donations from Epstein did not return JTA requests for comment.)<\/p>\n

Beyond the donations, the latest files have renewed scrutiny on Epstein\u2019s Jewish associates \u2014 and induced a cascade of consequences for many of those named beyond Summers.<\/p>\n

Casey Wasserman, the Jewish entertainment agent, has lost top clients over his relationship with Epstein and is currently facing calls to step down from the Los Angeles Olympics planning committee.<\/p>\n

Thomas Pritzker, a cousin of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, has stepped down from his role as chair of Hyatt Hotels over his Epstein connections, while Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul, who played a large role in facilitating the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, has also resigned from government after emails revealed Epstein had left her children millions in his will.<\/p>\n

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