This morning the following post appeared in my Facebook feed (don’t ask why Facebook thought this was something that would be of interest to me):
My initial reactions were of disgust but also skepticism, given how rare it is for a Rabbi – let alone a Jew – to convert to Islam, not to mention how weird it seems to be refer to someone as Rabbi “Mort” (as opposed to their surname).
So I did some digging.
The following video of “Rabbi” Mort supposedly converting to Islam appears on YouTube:
as does this video of Mort and his wife quoting from the Torah:
No real Rabbi would ever refer to the “Samaritan” text and “Masoretic” text – there is just the Torah text in Hebrew. Genesis 21:13 reads:
וְגַם אֶת-בֶּן-הָאָמָה, לְגוֹי אֲשִׂימֶנּוּ: כִּי זַרְעֲךָ, הוּא
This translates as “But also the son of the handmaid I will make into a nation, because he is your seed.” There is nothing “antisemitic” about this; it is the proper translation, and no proper Rabbi would claim otherwise.
In this video, the “Rabbi” mispronounces the word “Tehilim” (psalms), which no Rabbi (or even knowledgeable Jew) would:
In another video,
the “Rabbi” starts with a “quick prayer”, which is really only part of the second verse of Chapter 30 of Psalms plus some other words that do not fit. The last word is “Yerushalam,” which I assume is his (incorrect) way of saying “Yerushalayim,” the Hebrew word for Jerusalem. I cannot even make out what he means by the word before. He later refers to “Song of Solomon”, which I have never heard any Rabbi use to refer to “Shir Hashirim” (Song of Songs).
In other words, at this point I was sure “Rabbi” Mort was a fraud.
More digging reveals this odd story from 2019:
The Daily News, Miami Herald, Newsweek, JTA, Fox News, and NBC all write that Morteza Javadi is a Hasidic Jew who is suing McDonald’s over not being hired due to his beard.
As a Hasidic Jew who has never trimmed his beard, I wondered what kind of Hasidic Jew would possibly work at McDonald’s?
And I’m not talking about the Glatt Kosher McDonald’s in Buenos Aires. Working in a non-kosher McDonald’s is pretty much anathema to a Hasidic Jew.
It only took a little bit of searching to find Mort’s YouTube channel for his “Mahi Ministries” (Disclaimer: Missionary videos) and the website for his ministry. He’s clearly a Christian missionary and doesn’t resemble anything close to a Hasidic Jew. But I suppose that wouldn’t make the same headlines?
I guess I’m not surprised by the media’s lack of research. If you’ve ever read a news article about a subject that you’re familiar with you know that they are full of factual errors and lazy reporting. It’s unfortunately rare to find well researched news these days.
But what was Mort’s motivation? Was this all just a cash grab for an easy lawsuit? Publicity? What are your thoughts on the story?
Both the YouTube channel and ministry website have since been deleted, but this video (which also exposes “Rabbi” Mort and claims he is from Iran – which could make sense given the name ‘Morteza Javadi‘ seems to be Iranian) contains a screenshot:
At this point we see Mort and his wife seemed to have been missionaries or messianics, and not real Jews at all.
Mort’s wife is Summer and on her YouTube channel, there are recent videos like this:
showing they do not dress either as religious Jews or as religious Muslims. So does her Instagram account:
which also shows they celebrate Chanukah (worst Muslims ever) while referring to a Chanukiah incorrectly as a Menorah:
and cannot even spell “Chag” (Hebrew for festival)
In other words, Mort and Summer are outright frauds. Storytellers in fact.
