The Jerusalem Post Newspaper Online, Jewish World Article,
December 8th, 2000:
Cantor charged in prostitution
ring
By Ruth Silverman
(December 6) CHICAGO (JTA) - Members of Chicago's Jewish
community are expressing shock and dismay about the arrest of a
former synagogue cantor and his wife of a few weeks.
The two were charged in connection with a prostitution ring. Joel
Gordon, 51, who has served at several Chicago-area synagogues, was
charged November 21 with keeping a house of prostitution following a
police raid on three massage parlors, operated out of private
apartments in the northern suburbs.
His wife, Alison Ginsberg, 23, was charged with prostitution and
keeping a house of prostitution.
Gordon was most recently the cantor and spiritual leader of
Congregation Shirat Emet, a now-defunct synagogue in the Chicago
suburb of Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
Cantorial colleagues of Gordon's were stunned by the news.
Cantor Shlomo Shuster of Ezra Habonim-Niles Township Jewish
Congregation trained Gordon as a cantor.
He remembers his student as "very talented and bright - but one
who liked to dance on the edge." "I'm very sad," he continued. "It's
very bad for all Jews, for the profession, and it's a disgrace to
God's name, especially for a member of the clergy who wears the
mantle of God."
Cantor Eric Wasser, president of the Midwest Region of the Cantors
Assembly, said, "Obviously, we want to give anyone the benefit of the
doubt until due process has taken place." Gordon, he said, "has a
real musical talent. We will offer our support in whatever ways we
can. Certainly, there have been clergy with problems before, but this
is pretty unique."
Wasser, whose group is affiliated with the Conservative movement,
said he had not seen Gordon in a couple of years. Gordon used to be
active in the organization, helping to plan programs, Wasser said,
but had curtailed his involvement the last several years.
Gordon resigned from the Cantors Assembly last week.
One of the founding members of Shirat Emet, Betsy Delman,
expressed a mixture of anger and heartbreak at the news of Gordon's
arrest.
"Once you get over the shock and disgrace of his part in something
so sleazy, you feel sorry for him," said Delman, who remembered
Gordon as a "Pied Piper" with children.
"What was it that turned him in this direction - the demise of his
synagogue? His age? His voice was incomparable. Was it all just
superficial? Was there another person in him? Was there something
that made him change? How do we explain to our children what a
supposedly spiritual man has done?"
Cook County Sheriff's Police said female employees at three Golden
Touch Massage parlors offered sexual favors for money and the
business featured massages performed by nude women.
As part of the undercover investigation, a female officer applied
for a job with the owner of the business.
The officer was told by the owner she could make between $600 and
$1,100 per day working for him, but that all activities performed
would be "illegal," the sheriff's department said.
Both Gordon and Ginsberg declined comment, when reached by phone
at the home of her mother. When asked if their lawyer, whom she
refused to identify, would comment on their behalf, Ginsberg said,
"Don't call him. He doesn't want to be bothered." Several other
people were also arrested in connection with the ring. All were
released on bail.
