JTA — Sometime in the early 2010s, Jeffrey Epstein walked into Dr. Steven Kaplan’s office for a root canal.

The procedure took some time and required multiple visits. The two men got to chatting. “He was just another guy, that’s it,” Kaplan recalled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The subject of Judaism came up.

“I wanted to put some yiddishkeit into him,” Kaplan said, using the Yiddish word for Judaism. “I was telling him, ‘You should meet a Jewish girl, because I think these girls are going to want you for your money.’ He said, ‘I would marry a Jewish girl.’”

Kaplan, who says he was unaware at the time of Epstein’s 2008 conviction and sentencing for sexual solicitation of a minor, sent Epstein several books on Judaism and offered to connect him with his rabbi. That meeting never happened, but when Epstein offered to help Kaplan fix up his office, a different proposal emerged: Kaplan asked his patient to donate to his children’s Jewish school or any Jewish institution.

Epstein agreed, telling Kaplan he would do it in honor of his mother. Soon, his accounts wired $25,000 to Yeshiva Tifereth Moshe in Queens via the Jewish donation service MATCH. (He had initially promised $50,000, Kaplan said.) On a form for MATCH explaining his donation, included in the latest Justice Department release of files pertaining to his investigation, Epstein (or an assistant of his) wrote, “I AM IMPRESSED WITH THE CHILDREN I HAVE SEEN FROM THE YESHIVA.”

“Maybe that donation is helping him in the next world,” Kaplan told JTA. He added that, by the tenets of Orthodox Judaism that stipulate 10% of one’s earnings should go to tzedakah, or charity, Epstein’s donation was “nothing.” A spokesperson for the yeshiva told JTA they didn’t know anything about the Epstein connection. (JTA could not independently verify Kaplan’s account, but in emails revealed in the Epstein files, Epstein’s assistants relate conversations they had with Kaplan in which he urges the donation.)

Kaplan said he was of two minds today about Epstein’s support of Jewish causes throughout his life. “He still has a Jewish neshama,” Kaplan said, using the Hebrew word for soul, of the man who had orchestrated a wide-ranging network of underaged escorts; maybe giving money to Jewish causes was still a net good, regardless of where that money came from.

Yet Kaplan added that if Epstein were alive today and wanted to give to a yeshiva, knowing what he now knows about his crimes, he would have to ask his rabbi.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” the endodontist said. “I would go to the rabbi and say, ‘Is it a mitzvah for him to give it? Or is it bad for us to take it?’”

Kaplan’s ethical dilemma reflects one theme that surfaced in the Epstein files released by Congress last month about the financier and convicted sex offender’s connections to the Jewish world.

Scrutinized for evidence of Epstein’s misdeeds, the files have enabled armchair sleuthing about Epstein’s associates, fueled antisemitic conspiracy theories and caused powerful players implicated in them to face new consequences — as when Harvard University broke ties with its former president, Larry Summers, on Wednesday.

The files also offer a window into Epstein’s workaday, small-scale networking, suggesting an almost obsessive effort to be involved in the affairs of his friends and associates. Jewish groups and individuals made up a significant share.

The files show that Epstein made donations to and connections with Jewish causes with which he had little to no personal relationship. They also show that some Jewish groups benefitted from donations from Epstein even after his 2008 conviction for sexual solicitation of a minor — though it remains unclear whether they knew about it. Some have said specifically that they did not.

Epstein served 13 months in a county jail following that conviction, which was largely swept under the rug thanks to a “sweetheart deal” between Epstein and former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta. Many in the public had little knowledge of him or his misdeeds until investigative reporting about the deal emerged in 2018 and Epstein was arrested the following year.

Epstein sought to leverage his Jewish largesse as he also sought to improve his public image both before and after his conviction, the latest files show.

One email shows that he sought placement on the website eJewishPhilanthropy, then something of a directory for Jewish philanthropy insiders, for one of his foundations in 2013.

“The Foundation supports many jewish causes around the world as well as numerous Israli [sic] causes,” an Epstein staffer wrote in a draft letter sent to Epstein for approval.

Describing Epstein as “a financier and science philanthropist,” they trumpeted his support of the Jewish National Fund, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Columbia Jewish Foundation, UJA- New York, and Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, along with a few yeshivas that were not Kaplan’s. The bio goes on to note Epstein’s “long partnership with Leslie Wexner.”

Epstein’s only note: “no wexner affiliations please.” Six years later, Wexner, a prominent philanthropist to Jewish causes, would reveal that he had broken ties with Epstein years earlier after a decades-long relationship and forced him to repay $100 million he said Epstein had stolen from him. Epstein had previously served as a director of the Wexner Foundation, which funds fellowships for young people entering a career in Jewish communal service and intensive adult education programs for volunteer board members of Jewish organizations.

Now the latest Epstein files release has turned up the heat on Wexner, who again denied knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes in a........

© The Times of Israel