Diaspora Yeshiva is located near the Tomb of King David. It is a very run down facility and Rabbi Mordechai Goldstein rubs a lot of people the wrong way. He’s known for having a great lust for money.
One thing they had going was the old Diaspora Yeshiva Band starring people like Ben Tzion Solomon and Avraham Rosenblum. It was a famous band years ago.
I was at the yeshiva and lived in their dorms as Aish Hatorah wouldn’t let me live in their dorms as I was “too negative” I had been attacked by Rabbi Yeshua Witt’s next door neighbor and my nose was fractured after I turned aside from my assailant and he hit me with a cheap shot. I left Yeshua’s house as I felt it was dangerous to live there in my vulnerable state with my fresh wounds.
When I came to Diaspora, Rabbi Goldstein asserted that he was friendly with the late Shlomo Carlebach. I wanted to devote my life to Jewish studies in Shlomo Carlebach’s memory as he was recently deceased. (Shlomo died October 20th of ’94 or the 26th of the Hebrew month of Mar Cheshvan and I came to Israel January 31st on my birthday, next year).
Rabbi Goldstein told me I’d have to study all day and all night. I replied that even in the university world (I have a Master of Science in Management from a program Boston U did in Israel at Ben Gurion U of the Negev and I graduated with a 3.73 CUM) I never studied more than about 8 hours a day at all.
He asked me if I could do kiruv (“outreach”) work. I answered, “Yes” and I asked him how much he was going to pay me and he replied, “I am not going to pay you anything.” Now, I associate work with a salary and I replied I wasn’t going to work for nothing. He replied, “No tikkee, no tavee huh?” I left him soon after.
I showed copy of my MSM transcript to him and he replied my degree credits weren’t enough for a master’s. The degree is fully accredited by Massachusetts and the regional accrediting organization there. So I felt that I couldn’t win there.
People in that yeshiva threatened me and one person there pulled a pistol on someone else because he thought the other guy was a demon. I got the Hades out of there by going to the Christ Church by the Jaffa Gate.
The church gave me some money to get an apartment but not until I was forcibly converted to Christianity by them. That, by the way, is illegal in Israel.

I had a friend who went to Diaspora for awhile and he was paid $400 a week to work there. For some reason he looked like money to Rabbi Mordechai Goldstein.
The friend told me that he runs the yeshiva like a cult. YOu have to remember some of my older posting about how the Baal Teshuva movement is not just about chicken soup on Friday night, it's political in nature. The orthodoxy is looking forward to rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalema and they are awaiting the arrival of the 2 messiahs to break the grip of the non-Jewish world over the Jews and also to become, well, who knows what?
Rabbi Goldstein has a slick approach. He lets someone study there for awhile and then he sends a letter to the person's parents. The letter says something to the effect of, "Look, your child has been living in my dorms, eating my food, drinking my water and using my electricity and has also been getting an education in my seminary." Then he socks the parents with a bill they never asked for.
I knew a couple who were dirt poor who got married at Diasporah and the parents were dead set against it. The husband once told me not to worry as Rabbi Nachman of Breslov claims that a persons income is set on Rosh Hasahana. Obviously something is wrong here.
Rabbi Goldstein has a bad reputation when it comes to money in general and his wife was once running around the grounds of Diasporah waving packet of money in everyone's face. I have a friend who is a famous radio personality and singing star who refuses to deal with him.
Diaspora Yeshiva's website claims that the yeshiva is interested in turning out Gedolei Hador, or Torah giants. For the life of me, I don't know of one great scholar to have come out of that seminary.