www.CyberSynagogue.org
United States
CyberSynagogue.org

I can’t believe that this so called “leader” has now set up shop on the internet… Do people have any idea what kind of havoc he caused in our community? And to answer the questions he poses on the frontpage of the website: Is he scary? Will he bite? …YES and…YES. Now let me tell you why. Yizty is an unbalanced guy, and it goes WAY back. He just can not get it together. He was fired from the synagogue, could not get another real job, and now he is unemployable. So I discover, that in addition to raging at the credit union and the donut shop, he has attempted to solve his problems by luring unsuspecting people who are interested in Judaism over the Internet. Little do these people know that this man has a REAL temper. We in Riverside, have all experienced it first-hand. And if you have something tasty in your hand, you better watch that too! He has attempted vehicular manslaughter so he would surely bite you! Yitzhak Miller represents a great danger to the online community because he is not fit as a leader. Yet he spends an enormous amount of advertising claiming that he is a leader in the area of what he does. What Yitzhak Miller did for Riverside is terrorize our community and leave us with a lack of faith in Jewish clergy. This is not the type of person who should be a Rabbi

Rabbi at Riverside's oldest synagogue resigns amid complaints of conduct

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_rabbi26.32d1464.html

10:00 PM PST on Friday, January 25, 2008

By GREGOR McGAVIN
The Press-Enterprise

The spiritual leader of Riverside's oldest synagogue is stepping down, more than two months after he grazed a school psychologist with his truck during an argument over who was first in line at a drive-through ATM.

No one was hurt in the Nov. 5 fracas at Altura Credit Union in Riverside, and a judge this month dismissed misdemeanor charges of battery and hit and run against Temple Beth El Rabbi Yitzhak Miller.

Jory Yarmoff, president of the temple's board of directors, confirmed that the board has accepted the resignation.

He said that since the credit union incident, individual congregants have come forward to complain about how Miller treated them.

"The other issues predate the credit union incident. That just served to focus people's attention, " Yarmoff said.

"Anger management was part of it. The other part of it was his ability to successfully partner with temple leadership."

Miller resigned, effective June 30, in a letter to temple members dated Jan. 14, the day charges against him were dismissed. He has shaken hands and made up with his counterpart in the Nov. 5 incident, both sides said. That man, William Hendrick, a psychologist with the Riverside Unified School District, even wrote a letter asking temple members to forgive the rabbi.

Yarmoff praised the work Miller has done since arriving in July 2006. He said the rabbi has strengthened Sunday programs and education for adults and children.

Miller, who has been at the synagogue for a year and a half, said his problems there result not from his actions, but because Temple Beth El -- which serves more than 230 families -- is a small congregation with limited finances and volunteers.

Yarmoff said he expects Miller's resignation to be a hot topic at the temple's annual congregational meeting Sunday.

Yarmoff acknowledged a high turnover among rabbis but denied the temple has a problem holding on to clergy.

Past Struggles


Before arriving at Temple Beth El in July 2006, Miller served about five years as first a student rabbi, then community rabbi at Congregation Emeth in Gilroy.

Michael Oshan, president of the Gilroy temple's board, said Miller "had a lot to offer, but there were some issues." He declined to be specific but said anger management was involved.

Miller -- described in the police report on the ATM fracas as 6 feet tall and 275 pounds -- said in a Dec. 2 letter to the congregation that he has had "a compulsive eating addiction" since junior high school. He said he has been seeing a therapist for almost two years for his eating disorder and the therapist warned him that "previously unprocessed feelings would likely begin to come up in potent ways."

Miller said he also had attempted to enroll in an anger-management program but had not yet found one that would accept someone not ordered to join by a court.

He is really scary. He is unhirable. One should wonder which kind of lousy rabbi Yitzhak miller is that even after we are able to get rid of him, many of us still feel he is a threat to the community. From his own police report you can read that he drove his car on top of a gentile gentleman, who for some reason did not proceed with criminal charges. Perhaps the victim felt, as the rest of us do, that Yizhak's career was over. And this was punishment enough. From the experience that our congregation had, most people were very happy to see him go. There is a consensus that he is not cut for the rabbinate, and beleive me, I am not talking about his slobbish appearance or his lack of personal hygiene, I am talking about a person with deep psychological problems. One fact that Yitzhak calls attention to in the article is that the synagogue has a very low budget and therefore we cannot pay a rabbi as much as the market demands. This left us with the bottom of the barrel. If you are thinking about hiring him for anything, I would absolutely recommend you to reconsider. I do not have a personal vendetta, just a moral obligation to keep others from having a terrible experience.