Full Analysis Summary
Ruttenberg on Wexner and Epstein
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg says the financial support and professional opportunities afforded by her fellowship at the Wexner Foundation "plugged her into a network of the "the most powerful Jewish professionals in the country."
As a feminist rabbi whose most recent book is titled "On Repentance and Repair," she says she could not ignore the close personal and financial ties between Leslie Wexner, the benefactor of the foundation, and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Ruttenberg says she was "shocked, disturbed and unsettled" by early revelations about Epstein and Wexner.
She says she made a personal act of accountability in 2019: she donated the funds she took from the foundation to an organization confronting sexual violence and challenged others to take similar steps.
Ruttenberg's response to Epstein files
There was little reaction to her call at the time, Ruttenberg says.
She told the Haaretz Podcast that with new details revealed in the Department of Justice release of the Epstein files "my only regret is not speaking out earlier and more forcefully, no matter the cost."
Centering victims, dispelling conspiracies
Ruttenberg warned that 'when we try to pretend that none of this is happening, we feed every conspiracy theory.'
She said that centering the people who are harmed — 'who matters are raped children' — and living the values of 'our Torah and of every other teaching that we claim is holy' dispel those theories because 'we become the people who we are supposed to be.'
She urged centering victims and the harmed rather than protecting powerful benefactors, saying that living those values will help dispel conspiracy theories.