PERSON: Yisroel Goldstein

Rabbi

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, born in 1962, is the former director of Chabad of Poway, a synagogue he founded in 1986 in Poway, California. In April 2019, during a tragic shooting at the synagogue, he was injured while attempting to protect his congregants. Following the attack, he gained national recognition for his advocacy against antisemitism and was invited to speak at the White House and the United Nations. However, in July 2020, Rabbi Goldstein pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax fraud and wire fraud, admitting to orchestrating schemes that defrauded the Internal Revenue Service and other entities. In January 2022, he was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution. He began serving his sentence in February 2022 but was released to home confinement in May 2022 due to Covid-19 protocols. As of January 2025, there is no publicly available information regarding his current position or employment.

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