Rabbi Denise L. Eger warned the Jewish Community about convicted felon Arthur Goldberg (aka Arthur Abba Goldberg, Arthur A. Goldberg), who was a mini-Madoff on Wall Street before being jailed.

After his probation ended, Goldberg found a new group of people to con – gay Jews and their families. Goldberg co-founded Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). Rabbi Eger took this slippery charlatan to task on her blog:

He was a financier who bilked people of millions of dollars. Even though he was disbarred he holds out his Law degree–Juris Doctor as some kind of credential. And yet he set up JONAH and pretends to be an expert.   Far from it.  The Ex-gay industry regularly uses outdated and disproven research to base its “therapy” upon.  Goldberg and his ilk are the real frauds forcing their particular brand of lies upon desperate and sometimes very fragile people who desparately want love and acceptance while unable to embrace their full selves.

The truth is that God made us who we are.  B’tzelem Elohim–we are made in the image of God.  That is the truth that should win out for everyone.  We in the Jewish community must expose such chicanery and lies  that are done in the name of our tradition.  And we must demand that con men like Goldberg that continue to practice their criminal behaviors of con jobs must be held accountable.

Once a con man always a con man.  BEWARE!

Rabbi Denise L. Eger is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami: West Hollywood’s Reform Synagogue.  She is a currently the Board President of the Southern California  Board of Rabbis.

Arthur Goldberg’s damage-control campaign has begun, says Dave Rattigan of Ex-Gay Watch.  His strategy is to portray himself as an innocent man who made a mistake, and is now the victim of a ruthless personal attack by the purveyors of the much-feared gay agenda.

Click here to read Rattigan’s excellent refutation, “I’m the victim: Arthur Abba Goldberg versus the world.”

By now, the world knows that Arthur Abba Goldberg was a big-time crook. After he left prison and his parole was up, he founded Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH). He also became a major player in the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality (NARTH) During his decade-long tenure he never revealed his sordid past.

He hid by slyly dropping the “Abba” from his soiled name. For 10 years, he has posed as a moral paragon and paraded himself around the nation as an “expert” on homosexuality. The truth is, he is just an ex-con up to his same old tricks. Except this time, his con game is “curing” LGBT people.

Today, I went into the bowels  of a musty New Jersey library to retrieve old copies of The Record (Bergen) from 1989. I had to use microfiche, giving me flashbacks of my high school investigative reporting classes.  Below is a crook photo of Goldberg from the July 18, 1989 issue of The Record under the headline, “SWINDLE: Bond Whiz Admits Guilt in $2B Fraud.”

The sub-headline is “Abracadabra is No Houdini.”

Sadly, Goldberg and his apologists are already spinning his criminality and moral turpitude. They are saying that his appalling past is being distorted by gay activists. And, they are claiming that his crimes are minor…..because we ALL know someone who tried to steal $2 billion dollars. More on that another time. For now just enjoy the newspaper clips.

(Arthur Abba Goldberg’s original article is HERE)

By: Erez Harari

“If you want to be gay, gey gezunta heit (you should live and be well)”

This catchphrase, coined by Arthur Goldberg of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) is used to illustrate that his “reparative therapy” organization believes that individuals who “choose” to be gay have every right to do so, just as an individual has a right to choose to “change”.

However, a recent article written by Arthur Goldberg on Arutz Sheva (a national Israeli news station) belies the disingenuousness of this message when Arthur lambasted a recent Yeshiva University event entitled “Being Gay in the Orthodox World”. This event was intended to illustrate some of the struggles, both internal and external, that Orthodox Jews have when trying to negotiate their religious and sexual identities (videos of the event are on vimeo.com, search: “YU gay panel”).

The purpose of the event was solely to raise awareness and tolerance, and it was explicitly stated that the event would not address halachah (Jewish law), reparative therapy, or the biological vs. social nature of sexual orientation. It was merely a chance for people to share their personal, often heart wrenching, stories about growing up gay in the Orthodox Jewish community.

This message was completely lost on Arthur Goldberg, who works with individuals “struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions” on a daily basis.

He begins his article by stating that the program “illustrates a classic strategy designed to manipulate Jews”. He clearly  twists a simple plea for awareness and sensitivity into some sort of nefarious plot concocted by individuals with sinister ulterior motives. He then suggests that the panelists, a group of four Yeshiva University alums in their 20s, some of whom only came out within the past year or two, were “clever purveyors of a propaganda effort to alter attitudes within the Orthodox community”.

It’s surprising that raising awareness of the fact that homosexuality exists in the Orthodox community and encouraging sensitivity towards homosexuals is turned into a bad thing. No one violates Torah law by being nice to people.

Arthur claims that members of the “ex-gay” community were denied an opportunity to speak on the panel. This is blatantly false. The panel was comprised exclusively of Yeshiva University students and alumni and Arthur was denied a spot on the panel because he is not an alumnus. (Read More)

Ex-Gay Watch reports that convicted con artist Arthur Abba Goldberg, who dropped the “Abba” in his name and co-founded JONAH in 1999, is trying to create yet another false identity by manipulating the wikipedia website. His latest assumed name is Arthur “Avrum” Goldberg.” Here is what Ex-Gay Watch had to say:

However, in what seems too coincidental to be such, the longstanding “Arthur A. Goldberg” in the Wikipedia article about JONAH was changed to “Arthur Avrum Goldberg” on February 8th.  The editor goes by the name of Ann Jonah.

Avrum is Yiddish for Abraham, which in turn means “father of nations” or father in general to the Jews.  Abba also means father and so we think Goldberg is being cleverly deceptive here.  We also think we know why this edit was made several days before the current story hit.  This post will be updated once confirmed.

Apparently, a con artist just can’t stop conning, even when the jig is up. It is almost amusing to watch Goldberg’s useless machinations on his wiki page, even as the story of his true identity goes viral on the Internet. Arthur Abba Goldberg is clearly the “father” of falsehoods.

There is still no public statement from Goldberg. He is still manipulating and maneuvering behind the scenes like a trapped wet rat. I suggest he come out of the convict closet and admit he is a snake oil salesman. No matter how hard he tries, he will not be able to rewrite history.

Why, exactly, does Exodus International — the world’s largest ex-gay organization — allow scientifically inept writers to make the organization’s outreach to youth appear ignorant and irrational?

And why does Exodus commit research fraud just a few months after the reparative-therapy lobbying group NARTH was publicly exposed and criticized for committing fraud with the same research?

I wondered this, again, after reading Emproph’s latest dissection of a new Exodus Youth article that claims to educate readers about the science of sexual orientation.

Exodus cites 16-year-old research as if it were current; ignores research that has occurred since 1993; mischaracterizes studies regarding the biology of sexual orientation; and overlooks the antigay politics and discredited claims of its main source, reparative therapist Jeffrey Satinover.

Exodus also mischaracterizes the research of Dr. Lisa Diamond, who publicly discredited NARTH last year for mischaracterizing her research regarding sexual fluidity and bisexuality in the same manner.

Exodus concludes by misrepresenting the research of Dr. Robert Spitzer, who in a 2001 study found that few people appear capable of changing their sexual orientation — and that of those who claim to be successful, many remain mostly or fully same-sex-attracted despite their claim to be heterosexual.

This morning, our website received an uplifting letter from a person who shed the bondage of the so-called “ex-gay” trap:

“I personally was a virgin at 36yo waiting for God to heal me of my homo “iniquity”. I listened to Baptist rhetoric that I was evil and never was with a man (or woman). I ended up in the Florida Everglades with a shotgun in my mouth before I realized that the churches don’t get it. God didn’t want me to blow my head off. Now in a 13 year gay relationship — SO HAPPY! So good! Don’t listen to them.”

It is always beautiful to see people leave the wreckage of th ex-gay nigmare behind and go on to find the very success and happiness that group’s like Exodus say is impossible. In the end, the truth does win out

Truth Wins Out (TWO) today called on Parents and Friends of ‘Ex-Gays’ (PFOX) to clarify whether it actually filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Washington, DC Office of Human Rights. PFOX claimed it launched its alleged suit because so-called “ex-gays” are not protected under its sexual orientation anti-discrimination law.

At the request of a reporter, D.C. Superior Court looked through all the court’s case records and could find no “lawsuit” filed by PFOX against the D.C. Office of Human Rights. What they found was a filing called a “Petition for Review of Agency Decision.” The court does not consider this a lawsuit.

PFOX responded to the Washington Blade by calling their cockamamie legal maneuver a “lawsuit of sorts.” I guess this is similar to their absurd sexual engineering program that produces heterosexuals of sorts.

PFOX is a political organization that sells the idea that people can “pray away the gay.” It was founded by lawyer Roy Cohn’s ex-boyfriend, Anthony Falzarono, and bankrolled by the Family Research Council. It was later run by therapist Richard Cohen, who was banned for life by the American Counseling Association. The current leader is Regina Griggs, who has an openly gay son.

By Wayne Besen

In one of the best articles on the ex-gay myth in years, the Times of London captured the true essence of these dangerous programs when the newspaper went undercover at Exodus International’s 2007 annual conference in Asheville, NC. The article cut through the spin, painted an accurate portrait of what Exodus is about and offered a genuine glimpse of the pain and suffering caused by sexual engineering programs.

Reporter Lucy Bannerman did her homework and rightfully highlighted the false advertising of Exodus that leads people to believe that they can pray away the gay. The counterfeit hope and unrealistic expectations are made clear when Exodus’ leader Alan Chambers triumphantly appears at a pep rally.

“How many of you are in need of some hope here tonight?” A murmur passes through the dark auditorium, pleasing Chambers, the man with the microphone. Heads nod. “How many of you are at the end of your rope?” he continues. “How many are ready for an encounter with the Lord?”

Later in the expose, “an amazing week of breakthroughs, transformations and healings,” is promised. And, an Exodus sexual engineer tells the reporter that she will have a “very impactful” experience.  The reporter also points out that an Exodus’s affiliate in the United Kingdom, Re-alignment Ministries, uses the slogan “reinventing people.” Anyone who says that Exodus is not misleading people with pie-in-the-sky promises of heterosexuality is simply not telling the truth. (Read More)

Evergreen Also Whitewashes Suicide of Stuart Matis, Says TWO

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out (TWO) slammed “ex-gay” Mormon group Evergreen International today for gross violations of ethics and morality. The “pray away the gay” ministry listed convicted sexual predator therapist Christopher Austin as a resource and also covered up the suicide of Stuart Matis, a Mormon who took his own life because he could not change his sexual orientation.

“Evergreen should be ashamed and apologize for the unethical and immoral way it conducts business,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Instead of admitting the group’s failures, Evergreen has engaged in a series of omissions and cover-ups that whitewash reality at the expense of their victims.”

The blog, Ex-Gay Watch, discovered that Evergreen listed Christopher Austin on its site. What Evergreen failed to mention was that Austin, a disgraced therapist in Irving, Texas, was convicted of sexually assaulting a male client in Sept. 2007. Austin was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but received seven years probation, had to register as a sex offender and was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine.

“Unfortunately, Evergreen continued to promote Austin’s therapy and hold him up as an example of success,” said Besen. “Under pressure, Evergreen finally scrubbed him from its website this week, but the appropriate action would have been to let people know the truth. Sadly, Evergreen’s answer is to bury the facts in order to promote their fiction that one can change from gay to straight.”

In an equally disturbing incident, Evergreen whitewashed the heartbreaking suicide of Stuart Matis. On its website, Evergreen lists Fred and Marilyn Matis as past speakers and blithely says, “Their oldest son, Stuart, had same-gender attraction.”

This, of course, leads readers to believe that their son is now “ex-gay.” What Evergreen fails to tell readers is that the dangerous “ex-gay” message led Stuart to end his life. In his suicide note, Stuart Matis wrote:

“The church has no idea that as I type this letter, there are surely boys and girls on their callused knees imploring God to free them from this pain. They hate themselves. They retire to bed with their fingers pointed to their heads in the form of a gun. I am now free. I am no longer in pain and I no longer hate myself. As it turns out, God never intended for me to be straight. Perhaps my death might be a catalyst for some good.”