The products of safrus — Sifrei Torah, tefillin and mezuzas — were printed onto parchment and sold as the real thing, according to an investigation conducted by Rabbi Yisroel Friedman and Benny Rabinowitz of the Hebrew Yated Ne'eman's Shabbos Kodesh Supplement. The same sofer also published a Tikkun Soferim that has mistakes in it that render any sefer Torah non-kosher that was written using it as a guide.
Aspects of the fraud were originally uncovered by the Lishkas Hakodesh, an organization headed by HaRav Menachem Yehuda Gross and with the blessings of HaRav Eliashiv shlita whose purpose is to strengthen aspects of the kashrus of Stam (the Hebrew acronym of Sifrei Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzas). The organization was founded in the wake of the scandal of silk screening used for sifrei Torah around a decade ago.
The sofer who is at the center of this most recent scandal has been the subject of a long-running din Torah in one of the botei din in Yerushalayim. It was known that the sofer used his outstanding writing as the basis for a font that was digitized for computer use.
The sofer published a Tikkun Soferim, a special printed book that shows the way a sefer Torah should be written, using the font made from his handwriting. In his Tikkun Soferim the sofer put a note next to each Sheim Hashem stating whether it is kodesh or chol. Those that are kodesh require special kedushoh when writing them. However reviewers found that he marked two Sheimos as "sheim chol" that are unquestionably kodesh. The result is that any sefer Torah written following the instructions of that Tikkun Soferim is not kosher unless those two Sheimos are scraped off and written properly lesheim kedushas sefer Torah and lesheim kedushas Hashem.
In the course of the discussions in beis din a possibility was raised that the sofer used his digitized handwriting font to print sefer Torahs, tefillin and mezuzas on parchment. Even if the results are later overwritten by a sofer, HaRav Eliashiv shlita has ruled that writing on top of printed letters is completely posul and there is no reason to discuss or prove this position. HaRav Eliashiv added that if a sofer has tried to sell products that were overwritten by him on printed letters that are completely posul, nothing that he has written, even not using this invalid technique, should be used since such a sofer is totally unreliable for any aspect of Stam.
