New York Rabbi Arrested For Selling Thousands Of Foreskins On Craigslist is a Satire Claim
The claim that a New York rabbi sold foreskins on Craigslist originated on a website that explicitly labels its stories and characters fictional.
Corrected and updated 23 September 2026.
The claim that a New York rabbi was arrested for selling thousands of foreskins on Craigslist originated in a fictional article published by World News Daily Report, a website whose own published disclaimer states that its articles are satirical and its characters fictional.
The claims, one by one
The following claims appear in the World News Daily Report story. They are summarized here as elements of that fictional account, not as verified facts.
| Element of the fictional account | What the article itself provides |
|---|---|
| A New York rabbi, named in the article as Aaron Zayin, was arrested. | The publisher states that the characters in its articles are fictional. |
| The arrest followed an exchange with a federal agent posing as a Craigslist buyer, “according to the criminal complaint”. | The article refers to a criminal complaint but provides no linked document or case identifier. |
| Approximately 5,200 foreskins allegedly sold since 2015. | The article presents the figure as an estimate and gives no source for it. |
| Quotations attributed to a named police officer and to a police department spokesman. | Quotations within the fictional account, attributed to a character the publisher identifies as fictional. |
| Assertions about the man’s religious practice and customers. | Elements of the same fictional account. |
| A possible $500,000 fine and 1,087 years in prison. | Attributed in the article to unnamed “experts”, with no statute cited. |
That article does not establish that the alleged arrest occurred.
What the publisher disclosed
The basis for this correction is the publisher’s own disclosure, not the story’s implausibility. The footer of the archived article reads:
“World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional …”
The same language appears on the site’s separate disclaimer page. The article used the language of crime reporting, while its footer identified the publisher’s content as fictional.
The disclaimer was not hidden. It sat at the foot of the article page itself, below the story, and again on a page of its own. A publisher’s account of its own content is usually in one of those places, or on an “About” page, and reading it takes less time than the article does.
Publication and republication history
The archived page’s publication metadata dates the story to 7 June 2019. This page republished the text on 17 November 2020, the date recorded on the archived copy of this page.
Those are two separate events: the publication date recorded in the original page’s metadata, and the date this page reproduced the text. Neither records an arrest, and neither should be read as one.
What happened to the original
The World News Daily Report homepage now redirects to an unrelated website. An archived copy preserves the original article and its disclaimer.
That matters for a practical reason. A claim can outlive the page that produced it, and a headline can keep circulating after the source — and the disclaimer attached to it — has stopped being reachable at its original address.
The bottom line
This story should not be treated as a verified arrest report. It was published as fiction in 2019, and republishing it here did not make it otherwise.
The check that resolved it did not depend on the story sounding unlikely. It meant following the claim back to the publisher that first ran it, and reading what that publisher says about its own work.
