Sassi Gez, a star defense attorney who is a welcome guest in the courts of rabbis and Kabbalists, recounted to Al-Monitor Sept. 21 that he had seen with his own eyes how they achieve prominence and accrue unusual power.
Over the years, influential rabbis have emerged in the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox sphere and also within the Sephardic world, attracting both religious and secular followers. Some of them created courts and became known all over the country for their Jewish wisdom and unique blessings. But now a new phenomenon has sprung up. Self-proclaimed rabbis have gathered around them flocks of followers who admire them blindly, attribute to them supernatural qualities and even hand them money and gifts.
