They flew him in just so he could give a little homily at a new prayer room in the UM hospital, and Israel’s chief rabbi duly poured on the donor-schmaltz (“You and your mother are doing a lot of good, and your father in heaven is so proud of you today.”). Now he’s giving homilies from his jail cell, where this career criminal (the police have been after him since 2005) has finally been imprisoned.

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And… I gotta say! This is the most a-fucking-mazing university page I’ve ever seen! And it’s still up on Georgetown University’s site, and all they have to do is update it with the information that he’s in jail now!

I’m quoting this in full. I am not making this up.

Yona Metzger is the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, making him one of the country’s two chief rabbis along with Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. In June 2013 he suspended himself from official duties while under investigation for money laundering. Metzger was born in Haifa, Israel in 1953 and was ordained a rabbi after serving in the Israeli Defense Forces as a chaplain. He was appointed to the Chief Rabbinate in 2003; his appointment was controversial, as he is the only chief rabbi to have been appointed without prior experience as a rabbinical judge. Metzger has also faced allegations of sexual abuse and extortion, though formal charges were never filed. Metzger has followed in the steps of his predecessor Yisrael Meir Lau by pursuing dialogue with other religions. He has met with Muslim and Hindu leaders, the Dalai Lama, and Pope Benedict XVI during the latter’s visit to Israel.

Fuckin’ A! We want this paragon in our Berkley Center for Religion Peace & World Affairs and you know what fuck you if you think just cuz he takes charitable donations meant for suffering people and stashes them in his sister’s house we should let him go. NO. Here’s his revised faculty page and did we say fuck you?

Yona Metzger is the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, making him one of the country’s two chief rabbis along with Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. In June 2013 he suspended himself from official duties while under investigation for money laundering. Metzger was born in Haifa, Israel in 1953 and was ordained a rabbi after serving in the Israeli Defense Forces as a chaplain. He was appointed to the Chief Rabbinate in 2003; his appointment was controversial, as he is the only chief rabbi to have been appointed without prior experience as a rabbinical judge. Metzger has also faced allegations of sexual abuse and extortion, though formal charges were never filed. Metzger has followed in the steps of his predecessor Yisrael Meir Lau by pursuing dialogue with other religions. He has met with Muslim and Hindu leaders, the Dalai Lama, and Pope Benedict XVI during the latter’s visit to Israel. Metzger just entered prison for 3 1/2 years for fraud, breach of trust and tax offenses. But watch this page – he’ll get out early (holy man) and will be able to resume his affiliation with the Center. Meanwhile, you can visit with him here, as he talks about the importance of being charitable.

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The larger spiritual context:

In practice, the office of chief rabbi has become the grand prize in a corrupt system of political spoils. Indeed, as his successor and that of his Sephardi colleague were being chosen, incumbent Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger was already under house arrest on charges of bribery and corruption…. For decades the haredim have benefited from the fact that their singular priority—funding for the network of institutions that enable their self-enclosed lifestyle—was so narrow that they could negotiate their way into almost any government coalition. The installation of Yona Metzger as Ashkenazi chief rabbi in 2003 was a perfect expression of their cynicism and contempt for the institutions of the state: He was a rabbinic nonentity with questionable ethics, but he was an entirely reliable cutout. (Earlier in his career, Metzger had agreed to be disqualified from serving as a municipal rabbi in order to forestall disciplinary charges; when he was put up for chief rabbi, he argued that he’d never been disqualified from serving the whole country, which showed chutzpah even by Israeli standards.)

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Here’s El Supremo with his bestie Glenn Beck, bemoaning the “bad public relations” from which Israel suffers.