Tel Aviv police have placed Shaul Youdkevtich, head of Israel’s Kabbalah Center, under house arrest on charges that he bilked a cancer patient out of tens of thousands of dollars in order to “heal” her.

From YnetNews: A devotee of Kabbalah, the ill woman put her faith in the center and contributed $36,000 to the organization. When her condition deteriorated, members of the Israeli branch recommended she donate another $25,000. Meanwhile, rabbis recommended that she also purchase holy water to improve her condition – at an exorbitant price.

You can read more at Ha’aretz and there will certainly be plenty of jibs, jabs and blasts from the mainstream. Hopefully by now folks can tell the difference between the money-grabbing arms of the Kabbalah Center and the true, quiet ways of the ancient rabbis. It’ll probably get ugly, but kabbalah has survived pogroms, diaspora and a helluva lot more than Rick Ross pissing on it.

I’m deeply sorry for the suffering for this woman and her family, and the shanda Youdkevitch and his cronies have brought to the table is just so much worse than Madonna singing about Isaac Luria, even she’s humping the Zohar wearing a tefillin thong.