business

Quicken Loans Now Kosher

Jewish-owned mortgage company adopts halachic technicality.

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

AGUDATH ISRAEL

Agudath Israel is an Orthodox Jewish
advocacy group with its U.S. headquar-
ters in Manhattan, N.Y. The organization
provides a variety of services to help
Jews navigate society while maintain-
ing an Orthodox lifestyle.
Services include career training and
placement, voter information, legal
support, mortgage counseling and end-
of-life resources. The organization also
runs several summer youth camps.
Founded in 1913 in Poland, Agudath
Israel came to America in 1922. The
organization became involved in politics
and community outreach in the 1920s
and ’30s. Agudath Israel of America
grew with the Orthodox community
over the ensuing decades and has
branches in 27 states, including an
office in Washington, D.C.
Agudath Israel consults with gov-
ernment entities including legislative
bodies, the White House and other
executive-branch agencies.
The group has made waves by
opposing the ordaining of women and
supporting school-of-choice legislation.
It regularly files briefs on a variety of
cases in the judiciary.
Agudath Isreal hosts Siyum Hashas
celebrations, where Orthodox Jews
gather to celebrate their heritage, every
seven-and-a-half years. The last cel-
ebration in 2012 drew nearly 80,000
participants, making it the largest gath-
ering of Orthodox Jews in U.S. history.
The event had to be held in the MetLife
Stadium in New Jersey to accommo-
date the crowd.
— By Rob Streit, JN Intern

54

June 21 • 2018

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uicken Loans, principally
owned by Dan Gilbert, the
Jewish owner of the Cleveland
Cavaliers, is now kosher for Orthodox
borrowers. The company, which also
owns the online mortgage agency
Rocket Mortgage, announced Friday,
June 8, that it had adopted what is
known as a heter iska.
The move follows an April ruling by
Agudath Israel, a strictly Orthodox
Jewish organization, which said the
Detroit-based company was not kosher
for Orthodox Jews who were “in dan-
ger of transgressing the prohibition of
Ribbis D’oraisa” [the biblical prohibi-
tion on borrowing or lending at inter-
est].”
To get a “kosher” loan from a Jewish
lender, or for a Jewish lender to offer
a kosher loan, Agudath Israel insisted
the parties needed a contract called a
heter iska.

A LITTLE HISTORY
The Torah commands that Jews who
have wealth give only interest-free
loans to other Jews, and that Jews who
need loans take out only interest-free
loans from other Jews (Exodus 22:25,
Leviticus 25:35, and Deuteronomy
20:19). Detroit’s Hebrew Free Loan
puts those commandments into effect
every day.
Canon Law of the Catholic church
and Muslim Sharia law have equivalent
rules.
These laws protected the typical
borrower in the ancient world: some-
one from the working poor who had
run into hard times. It seemed unfair
to take advantage of the troubles of the
poor and perhaps to ruin their lives

further.
A different kind of borrower has
become more prominent in recent
centuries: the commercial debtor. A
merchant who needs stock to expand
a business, a first-time home buyer,
even a king who wants to launch an
invasion, all need loans, but it does not
seem unfair to charge them interest.
Still, the ancient rules prohibited loans
at interest.
At first, the church used Jews to
solve this problem. Christians could
not lend at interest to Christians,
but Jews could lend at interest to
Christians. This gave wealthy Jews a
livelihood in Medieval Europe, at con-
siderable personal risk. By the 12th
and 13th centuries in Italy and France,
prominent Christian families were
lending to Christians at interest and,
gradually, Church opposition subsided.
Observant Muslim and Jewish reli-
gious scholars used legal work-arounds
to deal with commercial loans. The
Jewish version of this work-around,
heter iska, operates by recasting the
loan as a kind of partnership.

WHY QUICKEN?
According to Yeshiva World News, “The
problem was that there was 77 percent
Jewish ownership of this company.”
After Quicken Loans’ June 8
announcement, Agudath Israel issued
a statement notifying the observant
community that the company had
adopted a global heter iska covering all
mortgages initiated after June 8.
The heter iska does not retroac-
tively reclassify existing loans, how-
ever, according to Agudath spokes-
man Rabbi Avi Shafran. But because
Quicken Loans sells all loans shortly
after they are made, he said, “many
leading halachic authorities approve
the continued use of these loans when
they are no longer owned by Quicken
Loans, without further corrective
action.”
The statement went on to say, “On
behalf of Torah Jewry across America,
we thank Quicken Loans for its sensi-
tivity and devotion to the needs of the
community.
“The company has exhibited true
leadership in taking this bold move
quickly and efficiently, trailblazing a
clear path forward for the observant
Jewish community. We are grateful for
this and we express our deepest appre-
ciation.” •

Zingerman’s
Farms Receives
FastTrack Award

Z

ingerman’s Cornman Farms is
a first-time recipient of the Ann
Arbor SPARK FastTrack Award. The
historic private event venue received the
honor at the 20th Annual Awards as part
of Ann Arbor SPARK’s a2Tech360 series
of events. The award recognizes public
and private companies headquartered
in Washtenaw County for consistently
high business growth. Cornman Farms,
honored in the one-year award category,
was among 16 companies recognized this
year.
“Over the years, SPARK has recog-
nized 108 fast-growing companies from
Washtenaw County with 270 FastTrack
awards,” said Paul Krutko, president and
CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK. “This year’s
class exemplifies the tremendous tal-
ent and dedication that defines the Ann
Arbor region’s thriving business commu-
nity.”
FastTrack awards are presented to
companies with impressive records of
growth. Recipients of 2018 FastTrack
awards were required to have revenue of
at least $100,000 in 2014, with an annual
growth of 20 percent for the following
three years.
“As a young business, it is truly reward-
ing to receive the SPARK FastTrack
Award,” said Kieron Hales, founder
and managing partner of Zingerman’s
Cornman Farms. “It not only honors the
vision I had several years ago to turn this
historic property into a home away from
home for our guests, but it also recog-
nizes the hard work and dedication our
entire team has put into this business to
make it successful.
“The biggest reward is that we can
continue to share the farm’s history, as
well as my family’s history and recipes,
and provide a place for people to come
together to celebrate life’s milestones over
our farm-to-table fare, creating memories
of their own.”
Yeo & Yeo CPAs & Business
Consultants sponsored the Ann Arbor
SPARK FastTrack Awards and verified
all the award applications. In addition to
accounting partner Yeo & Yeo, Comcast
Business supported the event as a co-
presenting sponsor. •

For more information on Zingerman’s Cornman
Farms, visit www.cornmanfarms.com or call (734)
619-8100.