Wednesday, May 5, 2021

This Truth? It Hurts: Michael and Amanda Elkohen

Well. The truth is often a hard pill to swallow, and this has been one of the hardest. Nay, most frustrating. Nay, most infuriating. This blog article is all about this earth-shattering news that came out a little over a week ago: Haredi ‘rabbi’ accused of being a covert Messianic missionary

For more than a decade, I'd called Amanda and Michael Elkohen friends. I "met" Michael online way back in 2010 (possibly earlier?) on the Jewish blogging circuit. We emailed. We became friends. 

When I traveled to Israel, I ate at their Shabbat table. 

Michael gave me and my ex-husband guidance on a family Torah scroll that was being fixed and checked. He was, after all, a scribe. A Jewish scribe. A sofer.

When I got divorced and struggled to find my place in the Orthodox world, Michael supported me. He even wrote a blog article about the treatment I was suffering at the hands of other converts. 

When I made aliyah, Amanda was there every step of the way. She offered to stock my kitchen with groceries, she checked in on me almost daily, and, again, I ate at their Shabbat table. 

When my stepson was to become a bar mitzvah, I immediately thought of Michael and Amanda, who, by then, in 2016 was going through chemo. I thought, we can support them financially and put Michael's skills as a sofer to work. We would all win! We paid more than $1,000 for those tefillin.

And then? For the past week I've read and re-read through emails, Facebook messages, blog comments, as many communications as humanly possible to try and answer the question:

How did I miss it? How did I miss that they were Christians in Jewish garb parading as something they most certainly were not? How did I miss that they were trying to missionize and convert Jews?

I grew up in the Bible Belt of Southern Missouri and then in Nebraska, where practically everyone is white and Christian or brown and Christian. I have a Mormon uncle. I have Evangelical friends. I know what missionizing looks like, and I've experienced a Christian intervention. 

So how did I miss this? 

Listen: This isn't about Judaism vs. Christianity. I've always said that we're all on our own journey and can't possibly know what's true and right for everyone. We only know what is true and right for ourselves. For me, that's Judaism. That's Orthodox, Torah-true Judaism. For others, that may be Christianity. 

But this? This is about lying, cheating, stealing. It's about being my friend and telling me you're one thing but you're another. It's about me giving you a bunch of money for religious items that are then completely null and void because the person who made them isn't even Jewish. That's lying, cheating, stealing. 

And for what?

While digging through old messages, I started to wonder if Michael's support after my divorce and subsequent foray into dating a nonJew for a short time was nefarious. Was he supporting me to pull me to the other side? 

I looked at the Facebook messages where Tuvia and Amanda arranged the tefillin and noticed that Michael originally added "Amanda Elk" to the chat before fixing it and adding "Amanda Elkohen" to the chat. Then I wondered: Did I not wonder why she had two accounts? 

No, I didn't. Because I trusted them. I trusted these people who said they were nice, good, Torah-abiding Jews. 

And it was all a lie. 

Now, all I can think about is those kids. Those children who grew up living a lie and lost their mom and now have no community. Will they be embraced by the Christian world? Will they be shunned by both worlds? Will Michael Elk end up in prison for all of the pain and suffering he's caused and all the money he's stolen? Will those children end up in the foster system and convert to Judaism or end up lost forever? 

I was so broken-hearted when Amanda died. She was young, she had a family, she suffered chemo for years. And the moment this story broke a week ago, my immediate thought was, "Thank Gd she's not alive to see this." But she was just as much a part of this as Michael was. 

So, I'm torn. I'm shattered. I've fallen down the rabbit hole every day for a week and started wondering if you can ever really know a person. Throughout the pandemic, I've realized that people I thought I knew and whose values and priorities I thought I knew ... well, I don't know them at all. 

Because you can never really know a person. Or can you?

This blog has graced the internet for 15 years. For 15 years, I've put my heart and soul on the internet and when I meet people who read my blog in person, the one thing they always say is this: Wow! In real life, you're exactly who you are on your blog. And that's always been my goal: To show you who I am, who I really am, because I want to relate to you and for you to relate to me. 

Do I share everything here? No, I haven't written extensively about my lichen sclerosis diagnosis or my anxiety or how the past year has shattered me, but that's less because I don't want you to see and understand me for who I am than it is about time and energy to sit and write. Are there things I don't write about and will never write about? Yes. Things like what really happened in my previous marriage, about Tuvia's stepson and his previous marriage, about my relationship with my parents, and other things that are, well, truly and undeniably private. 

And I thought that Michael and Amanda were those people too. They were so like who they were on Michael's blog and Facebook and other social channels. They were real, honest, relatable, down-to-earth people who you just couldn't help but love and root for. 

So I reached out to Michael:


I'm still waiting for the "truth" to come out. Because, based on the dozens of articles and the people I've spoken with who are close to the investigation ... neither Michael nor Amanda are descended from Jews based on America's very well-kept ancestry records. He's tied to multiple Christian organizations. They had duplicate Facebook accounts: one for Jews, one for Christians. 

I don't know if the "truth" will ever come out. I'm still sad that Amanda died from cancer. I'm still sad about those children and what the future holds for them. I'm sad about a lot of things. Where I was angry, I'm just sad now. Disappointed, defeated, and confused. 

How could someone lie, cheat, and steal for so long from so many people? All in the name of religion.