Some New York drivers were startled when they saw a man waving his arms, honking his horn and flashing a silver badge in a frantic effort to get them to pull over in traffic.
Even more surprising was the person suspected of doing it: a respected New York City and Westchester rabbi.
Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski, 49, clearly does not like people driving slow or cutting him off. Unlike other road rages, however, Borodowski has been arrested for allegedly impersonating a police officer to pull over offending drivers in his Camry. He would allegedly flash a badge and scream “Police! Police! Pull Over! in order to scream at drivers. To his credit, he appears to pulled over Goyum (non-Jewish) and non-Goyum drivers alike without prejudice in what could be a new reality series, “Road Rabbi: Life In The Fast Lane.”
Borodowski held a position at prestigious Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan, one of the world’s largest Jewish houses of worship. He also leads a congregation in Larchmont. He was fired from Temple Emanu-El.
When he was arrested in one case, Borodowski is quoted as saying “That girl was driving too slow, and I hate when people do this. The woman was going the speed limit of 20 miles an hour and Borodowski was irate that she wasn’t going faster. She refused to pull over and called police that there was a mad man honking and screaming at her.
Borodowski insists that he was not pretending to be a cop but was only saying that he would call the police. However, police confiscated a badge, which read: “Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority Officer 1338.”
Borodowski’s attorney says that the rabbi is bipolar and a hearing was postponed to allow for hospitalization.
Borodowski’s lawyer, Andrew Rubin, acknowledged that the rabbi’s behavior has been “manic” and said he’s suffering from bipolar disorder. The lawyer said the rabbi will plead not guilty in court this week. A previous hearing was postponed because the rabbi was hospitalized.
Other people have come forward to say that they were pulled over by Borodowski. One, Peter Moses, says that he tailgated them to try to get them to go faster and then pulled them over claiming to be a cop. He says that the rabbi screamed “I can arrest you! I can have you arrested!” Moses called his bluff and told him to arrest him but the Rabbi sped off.
Another driver actually videotaped an encounter.
It is not clear how far the bipolar disorder claim will take the Rabbi as a criminal defense since he was able to function in society and allegedly leave scenes when drivers confronted him on his claimed identity.
Borodowski is still on the website of the Larchmont congregation. His bio states:
Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski was raised in Argentina, earned his law degree at the University of Buenos Aires Law School (1986) and was ordained as a rabbi at the Seminario Latinoamericano (1991). He received an MA in rabbinic literature and a doctorate in Jewish Philosophy from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1997).
Rabbi Borodowski also studied at the Hebrew University Institute for Advanced Studies and is a graduate of Senior Educators program at the Melton Center for Education in the Diaspora – Hebrew University (1989-1990). In 1989 he was invited to spend a semester at the Hebrew Union College-Cincinnati as the first Conservative rabbinical student from the Seminario Rabbinical School. He is a graduate of the Metivta Institute for Contemplative Judaism (2000-2001) and is certified as an administrator and interpreter of the Myers Briggs personality type instrument specializing in organizational leadership and spirituality. He is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management for Jewish Leaders (2009).
Rabbi Alfredo also serves as the Executive Director of the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanuel in New York City. He also served for 5 years as the Executive Director of the Shalom Hartman Institute for North America.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment training allows for the measurement of psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. That would certainly seem relevant to Borodowski but he would seem more suited as the testee than the tester in this case.
Source: NBC
so judaism is considered bio-polar, i thought that. so it is a sickness then. so then the noahide laws should be null & void. great news then.
Shouldn’t chuckle, I guess, but compared with some of the ghouls JT’s discussed lately, this guy seems reasonably tame.
Happy? with a .22 short?
raff
no, he was just happy to see them.
I am with Mike with this one. This guy was just a schmuck!
Nick, did the Rabbi have one bullet in his pocket?? 🙂
I have seen a few cases where people having mental health issues will go out an start directing traffic, but this was rare. I agree with mike that he might also just be a schmuck.
There are people out there who are active police wannabes. You can see this type of person driving a retired police car (one that they bought at a state surplus sale and it is usually a Ford Crown-Vic) where they deck it out with gear to make it appear even more police like. The easy way to spot this is it does not have official/exempt license plates but has pushbars and spotlights on it. A real undercover police car might not have exempt plates but will not have pushbars or spotlights.
There are a couple of these guys around where I live. One guy even someonw managed to put a screen / rollbar between the front and back seats and even fashioned a laptop computer to resemble what police vehicles use. About couple of years or so one of these types gets arrested for pulling someone over here in the state. The state has a law for this, Criminal Impersonation in the Second Degree, (gross misdemeanor) but the special surprise for these guys is the pulling over under the false circumstances of them being a LEO is considered illegal restraint by the courts and the wannabe can be charged with Unlawful Imprisonment which is a class C felony.
Barney Fife wasn’t a Jew, was he?
This is just too funny. I had almost the exact same thing happen to me in Kansas City about 10 years ago. I passed a guy driving a crappy pickup who was going 15 in a 45. He sped up, got next to me at the next intersection, started honking, screaming and waving his “badge” at me. I know all the local PD there and instantly recognized the badge was hinky. He had it in a flip out like a lot of cops use with his badge on the bottom and his ID on the top. It was an expired bounty hunter’s license from a different state. I told him the jurisdiction we were in wasn’t known for having cops with a sense of humor and that they really wouldn’t appreciate him impersonating a police officer. He then made a suggestion that I do something anatomically impossible and that I was “lucky he was late or he’d kick my ass.” I said “You must not be in too late. You were going 15 in 45 and you’re wasting a lot of time threatening me.” He tore out from the intersection. So I tailed him to his destination which was still within the same jurisdiction. And about 10 blocks from the local PD station. He got out and went inside an office building. I called the real cops. As predicted, they didn’t have a sense of humor about it. Four squad cars were there tout suite. Seconds later he was being frogmarched out to his free ride in a squad car.
I hadn’t thought of that in years.
Thanks for the chuckle.
He is a rabbi…. He has privileges…..
The Rabbi needed UCS care long ago. upcspine or upper cervical heath centers or specific chiropractic.
He also has a terrible case of religion.
JT,
It’s “goyim” not “goyum” that is the plural for “goy”, which is a term for non-Jews. Bi-Polar disorder could well account for this behavior, but perhaps he was just a schmuck?
As a practical method of dealing with the tailgater bullies, using 4-way flashers and slowing down works effectively and reduces my danger.
hahahahahaha! Best headline evah…….
A goy is a term for a non-Jewish person, just FYI.
Is he high or low when he pulls people over … is he high or low when he flees the scene
LOL!
Oy!!!
Meyers Briggs type indicator test doesn’t have an option for crazy or weirdo authoritarian.
It could be…….. a Mental condition!