Talansky Tapes

Secret Tapes Show That L.I. Rabbi Who May Topple Olmert Has a Threatening History

Morris Talansky is the ordained rabbi, former Great Neck macher, and sometimes successful businessman who may bring down the government of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. In May, Talansky told Israeli prosecutors that he delivered envelopes of cash to Olmert, which he claimed were for both campaign and personal expenses. Olmert insisted on cash, Talansky said. “I just didn't really understand the system in Israel,” said Talansky, and so he acquiesced.
But in cross-examination scheduled for this week in Israel, Olmert’s lawyers are expected to paint the roly-poly 75-year-old Talansky as an aggressive, threatening businessman who has long had a reputation as a bully. Talansky has characterized himself as a naïve lover of Israel taken advantage of by a cunning politician.

A transcript of secret tapes obtained by New York Magazine suggests that Talansky can indeed be willful and determined, and even threatening.

Twenty years ago Talansky invested in a Pittsburgh office building which quickly went bust. He felt he’d been fleeced by the sellers, among them a couple of Long Island rabbis.

In the 29-page handwritten transcript, Talansky demanded his money back at meetings and in phone calls, which were secretly recorded. If he didn’t get it, he said, there’d be consequences. At one point an angered Talansky suggested that a bomb would be placed in the car of Richard Penzer, the lead seller on the building. One rabbi confronted Talansky over this.

“There were threats mentioned about blowing up his” — Penzer’s — “car,” he told Talansky.

At first Talansky denied that any threats had been made, then he acknowledged the bomb threat.

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded. “That was the anger when millions of dollars are at stake.”

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