Rabbi Who Tried (And Failed) To Uncover Anonymous Bloggers Five Years Ago... Tries Again

from the sing-a-song-for-streisand dept

Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, who tried to identify some anonymous bloggers nearly five years ago and had his attempt crushed as an anti-SLAPP effort (thanks to the work of Public Citizen and the EFF), is trying to identify the same bloggers again as part of a separate lawsuit involving a contractual dispute. Despite the previous ruling against his efforts to uncover these bloggers, Tendler appears to be trying to use this new case to end-run around that ruling. Levy notes that this new subpoena doesn't make much sense for a variety of reasons -- in particular because it's only likely to draw much more attention to the (now abandoned) blogs and blog posts that got him so upset in the first place, discussing claims of inappropriate sexual relationships with congregants.
Because Tendler has refused to provide any justification for the subpoena, as New York law requires as a condition for subpoena to a third party, it is not clear how Tendler thinks identification will help him prove his contract damages against the synagogue or whether, indeed, he is going to try arguing that he needs the names to sue the bloggers. The latter approach seems problematic not only for the reasons why his original subpoenas could not be enforced, but also because the statute of limitations for defamation claims is one year, and the bloggers have had nothing to say about Tendler for several years.

Perhaps the most significant oddity of the new subpoenas is what Tendler hoped to accomplish. Because the blogs have been inactive for years, that Google’s efforts to notify the bloggers of the new subpoena were unsuccessful. The new subpoenas seem more likely to draw renewed public attention to the allegations about Tendler’s abuses several years ago than to further his litigation interests.
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Filed Under: anonymity, defamation, first amendment, rabbi mordechai tendler


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  • icon
    Keroberos (profile), 5 Apr 2011 @ 8:10pm

    Almost looks like they're trying to build a third party liability case against Google. Since Google can't find the bloggers responsible, it must be Google's fault.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      ChimpBush McHitlerBurton, 6 Apr 2011 @ 11:30am

      Re: The Randy Rabbi

      I believe Elvis Costello wrote a song about this. I believe the title is "Love for Tendler"

      CBMHB

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Richard (profile), 6 Apr 2011 @ 4:24am

    Rabbi

    What on earth is a rabbi doing using the law in this way - doesn't he realize the damage it will do to the faith he represents?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    The Devil's Coachman (profile), 6 Apr 2011 @ 4:49am

    Then he can whine about "anti-semitism" when the courts rule against him again, a tactic that has worked for decades.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Eleazar Shlomo ben Yakov Goldman, 18 May 2014 @ 11:31am

    Israels' highest halachic authority has ruled

    The highest Rabbinical authority in Israel has ruled on all of this. That anyone writing anything, anywhere,regarding the allegations against Rabbi Mordechai Tendler is committing very serious lashon hara, in violation of TORAH. It's disgusting to read what many supposed Orthodox Jews have put onto various websites regarding Rabbi Tendler.

    Leave it to a halachic Beit Din to determine the truth or non-truth of the allegations against Rabbi Tendler. NONE of you, meaning anyone on various disgusting anti-Jewish websites should be saying anything negative against Rabbi Tendler, in violation of the ruling by the highest halachic authority in the world, from Israel, and according to TORAH.

    This whole generation of the world is sunk into gross depravity, like Rebbe Nachman of Breslov once said: "That in this day, the whole world would be covered in a FLOOD, but not a flood of water: a flood of the yetzer hara". Very sad indeed.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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