The wife of Ezra Sheinberg, the disgraced former head of Orot Ha’ari Yeshiva in Tzfat, said he told her about two cases in which he performed indecent acts with women he was supposedly treating.
The wife is heard saying this in a conversation with Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Rabbi of Tzfat, a recording of which reached Channel 2.
“I knew,” she said in the recorded conversation. “It is not something that ‘went out of the house’ without my knowledge. I knew about all of the ‘relaxation massage,’ I knew, I knew he did it.”
The Hebrew word she used, “harpaya,” which is best translated as “relaxation massage,” is also a euphemism for certain sexual acts.
In the recording, Rabbi Eliyahu asked Sheinberg’s wife if she knew what the “relaxation therapy” involved, and she replied: “He told me that it was part of the blessing, and I accepted that too.”
Rabbi Eliyahu then told her that her husband said she only knew about the “relaxation massages,” and she confirmed this: “He told me that afterward,” she explained. “about two [women]. Only about two.”
Sheinberg’s lawyer, Efi Dimri, noted that the recording “does not describe any criminal acts.”
Nine days ago, a judge ruled that Sheinberg will be remanded in custody until the end of proceedings against him.
The ruling by Nazareth District Court came just over a week after prosecutors formally filed charges against Sheinberg.
The indictment against him is a long one, involving multiple serious offenses against several different women, including rape, sodomy, indecent assault, obstruction of justice and fraud.
