NEW YORK
New York Post
By DAVID HAFETZ
December 25, 2005 -- A prominent rabbi is being accused of unorthodox and disturbing behavior — seducing a troubled woman in his congregation by telling her he was "the Messiah" and giving her "sex therapy" to help her find a husband.
According to a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan, Rabbi Mordecai Tendler of Rockland County promised the woman, who was seeking advice, that "doors would open" and "men will come" if she had sex with him.
The rabbi, a father of eight, allegedly told the woman that he was her "only hope." The woman says the rabbi held liaisons in his rabbinical study from 2001 to 2005 and threatened her to remain silent about "the sexual therapy."
Adina Marmelstein, 43, who lives in Manhattan, accuses Tendler of deceiving and violating her and going "beyond all bounds of civility and decency" while he acted as a trusted counselor and spiritual authority.
"He had a tremendous amount of power over her," said Marmelstein's lawyer, Lenore Kramer.
Marmelstein says she first met Tendler — the son of a Yeshiva University professor and the grandson of a highly respected religious arbiter, the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein — through his "work on behalf of women" in 1994.
In his career, Tendler has advocated for the rights of Orthodox women and assisted Jewish wives obtain religious divorces.
But the rabbi became embroiled in a sex scandal that involved other female accusers and in March was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America.