UPDATE OCT. 19 – The revised menu at Char Bar now calls its former Freundel sandwich, The Georgetowner. Freundel’s name has been removed from the menu.
A highlight of the menu at the Char Bar kosher restaurant in Washington is the items named for some of its more prominent Orthodox clientele. One is the Freundel. Its namesake, Rabbi Barry Freundel of Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown, was arrested Tuesday by D.C. Metro police and charged with voyeurism.
But owner Sima Soumekhian says he isn’t pulling the Freundel sandwich from his menu.
“At this point everybody is entitled to due process,” Soumekhian said Wednesday.
The Freundel features grilled pastrami and smoked turkey, with Chipotle sauce on a rustic bun. Char Bar serves it up with rosemary potato chips.
“Sharon Freundel is a great lady,” Soumekhian says, referring to Freundel’s wife, director of Hebrew and Judaic studies at Jewish Primary Day School in the Nation’s Capital, in Washington. “The Freundel is named for the whole family. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”
@DavidHolzel
. Every day this story gets even worse. He should have been thrown out years ago. The R.C.A obviously went out of their way not to throw him out of their organization. This is par for all Rabbinical groups who protect their favorites.
I was placed in my first congregation by Yeshiva University as well as my second. Both were conservative synagogues belonging to United Synagogue of AMERICA. That was the practice at that time.
I was blacklisted by the RCA and YU because I had served in conservative synagogues and they would not place me nor recommend me for Orthodox congregations. When I took my final Rabbinical position, The president of the R.C.A. at that time called me every Saturday night threatening that I leave my current Conservative congregation or I would be brought before the R.C.A. RABBINICAL COURT. My crime was being in a conservative congregation. I was blacklisted for all intent purposes of serving in an orthodox congregation. In addition the president of the RCA at that time told my wife and I that we would burn in Hell and that they would make certain that if I went public about being asked to leave my shul they would ruin the shidduchim, future marriages, of my children. My family is orthodox. I did go public and thank G-d my children are married to orthodox individuals. I have served 40 years in the rabbinate, 26, in my current synagogue. We moved into an orthodox community and my wife and I walk 2 miles each way to synagogue. My children were raised in an orthodox community and attended Yeshiva University . I am too old to be as angry as I was when I was young. I raised one and a half million dollars for Yeshiva UNIVERSITY and taught public speaking there the for ten years. In addition I raised $25,000 for the RCA. I resigned from the R.C.A, FOR THE CRIME OF BEING IN A CONSERVATIVE CONGREGATION Freundel should had been ousted years ago. This was a cover up by the R.C.A.
At first I urged people to wait for proof before judgment. Now that the proof is in he deserves punishment and the RCA should stop dancing around the issue and admit there was a cover up.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg