Thread by @ProPublica

1/ New: Michael Steinhardt is among an elite cadre of donors who bankroll some of the country’s most prestigious Jewish nonprofits.

He also subjected women to comments about their bodies & sex lives, according to the women and others who overheard them.
propub.li/2TSx8P9

2/ In a statement, Steinhardt said he regretted that he had made comments in professional settings through the years “that were boorish, disrespectful, and just plain dumb.”

But through a spokesman, he denied many of specifics attributed to him by seven women.

3/ Steinhardt co-founded @birthright, which has sent more than 600,000 young Jews on free trips to Israel. He spearheaded the creation of a network of Hebrew charter schools. A new natural history museum in Tel Aviv bears his name, as does @nyusteinhardt.

4/ Today, along with @nytimes, we’re sharing details of those allegations from seven women and 16 other people who said they were present when Steinhardt made such comments.

Many of the women agreed to let us share their stories by name.

5/ Sheila Katz, an executive at @HillelIntl, says Steinhardt repeatedly asked if she would have sex with the “king of Israel,” which he had told her was how he wanted to be referred to in a video she was producing about Jewish entrepreneurship.

6/ Through his spokesman, Steinhardt denied most of the details of Katz's story and said he did not “proposition” anyone.

7/ Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, a Jewish scholar, says Steinhardt asked her to be a “pilegesh,” an ancient Hebrew word for concubine, while funding her first rabbinical position.

8/ Steinhardt responded through his spokesman, “I have never uttered the word pilegesh, and don’t even know how to pronounce it.”

9/ He also denied saying that Sabath should put her vagina and womb “to work.”

10/ Deborah Mohile Goldberg, who worked for @birthright, says he asked if she and a female colleague would like to join him in a threesome.

Steinhardt’s spokesman called the account “simply not true.”

11/ Natalie Goldfein, an officer at a small nonprofit that Steinhardt had co-founded, said that while she worked with him, he suggested that they have babies together.

12/ The spokesman, Davidson Goldin, said Steinhardt had never “seriously, credibly” asked anyone for sex. Steinhardt disputed her account. He denied “ever saying anything that was intended to ask anyone to have sex with him.”

13/ Though he wasn't named as a defendant, Steinhardt appeared in 2 sexual harassment lawsuits against an Upper East Side art gallery. Two female employees alleged he often made sexually loaded comments to them, which they were expected to endure because he's an important client.

14/ None of the women interviewed by @nytimes and ProPublica said Steinhardt touched them, but they said they felt pressured to endure demeaning remarks out of fear that complaining could damage their organizations or derail their careers.

15/ Dozens of people said Steinhardt, who is married with three adult children, is known to goad single Jews around him into kissing, dating or having sex, and to insist that Jewish women have children, often using coarse language or offering money as an incentive.

16/ “In my nearly 80 years on earth, I have never tried to touch any woman or man inappropriately,” Steinhardt said in his statement.

17/ Provocative comments, he said, “were part of my schtick since before I had a penny to my name, and I unequivocally meant them in jest. I fully understand why they were inappropriate. I am sorry.”

18/ After requesting an interview with Steinhardt, @nytimes received unsolicited praise for from some of his prominent friends, including Marty Peretz, the former owner of @newrepublic; and @PAGotbaum, the former NYC public advocate.

19/ The decision to speak out was not easy:

“He set a horrifying standard of what women who work in the Jewish community were expected to endure.”
– Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi

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