New revelations about the Jewiest, screwiest podcast ever

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen

SOUTHAMPTON, New York (JTA)  – This is one of the strangest stories you’ll ever read, about one of the strangest stories ever told in a podcast.

“The Shrink Next Door,” rated No. 1 for three weeks straight on Apple’s Podcast charts, is about a Manhattan psychiatrist, Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, known for treating – and name-dropping – an array of celebrity patients while becoming well known in Jewish and literary philanthropic circles.

The podcast, written and hosted by Bloomberg columnist Joe Nocera, is mostly about Martin Markowitz, a longtime patient of Herschkopf, who says he spent most of his life – more than 30 years – under Herschkopf’s sway. Over the course of the podcast, Nocera describes how the psychiatrist isolated Markowitz from his friends and family and encouraged him not to pursue potential marriage partners.

There’s more: “Shrink” describes how Herschkopf became president of Markowitz’s theatrical fabrics business, created a charitable foundation almost entirely with Markowitz’s money, and got the foundation and his wife named in Markowitz’s will after his patient removed his sister and her children at the psychiatrist’s suggestion.

In the meantime, Herschkopf collected more than $3 million in fees from Markowitz over three decades, Markowitz told JTA in an interview at his estate here. It’s the same wooded, bucolic property that figures prominently in the podcast: Nocera lives next door, and while it belongs to Markowitz, Herschkopf managed to commandeer it and present it as his own for 26 years – relegating Markowitz to guest quarters at the back of the compound.

Herschkopf has claimed that Markowitz was a willing partner in everything, and Markowitz admits he was vulnerable and willingly followed his psychiatrist’s instructions. Nevertheless, the podcast explores the professional ethics of a psychiatrist insinuating himself into the personal, family and financial life of a patient to the degree that Herschkopf did.

Since the podcast debuted in May,  Herschkopf has faced professional consequences. In June, he disappeared from the New York University Medical School’s website. He resigned voluntarily, Herschkopf told JTA in a telephone interview. He recently also resigned from FASPE, the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, on whose board of directors he sat, according to the board chair, David Goldman.

“We accepted his resignation. Please note that we did not do any independent investigation of the reporting contained within the podcast,” Goldman told JTA.

In response to a message, Herschkopf called back JTA three times.

“I resigned [from NYU and FASPE] to spare them the adverse publicity Nocera was going to visit upon them,” Herschkopf said in one of the calls. He called later to question Nocera’s motivation for the podcast, noting the journalist plays tennis on Markowitz’s court.

“One would presume that would compromise his neutrality,” the psychiatrist said.

Herschkopf also said that “90 percent of the podcast is untrue or out of context,” and that Nocera “has had a vendetta against me for 10 years,” dating back to when the reporter began investigating Markowitz’s claims.

Nocera replied to JTA that the podcast was “rigorously reported and fact-checked to a fare-thee-well by me and the people at Wondery and Bloomberg,” which jointly produced the podcast.

Markowitz’s Southampton house was the scene of boisterous parties, hosted by his psychiatrist. Credit: Debra Nussbaum Cohen

The podcast has created a stir in Manhattan’s tight-knit philanthropic and Modern Orthodox Jewish circles. Herschkopf famously hosted summer parties in the Hamptons that brought between 70 and 170 people on buses – chartered by Markowitz – to the house whose mailbox bore the name of “Dr. Isaac Stevens,” Herschkopf’s alias. Herschkopf had Markowitz prepare the compound for each party and stand at the barbecue roasting kosher fare and serving guests. Guests with whom JTA spoke say they had no idea that Markowitz was Herschkopf’s patient. They believed – from the way Markowitz was dressed to the roles he served at the parties – that he was hired help.

The parties drew celebrities, actors and writers, and the creme de la creme of Manhattan’s Modern Orthodox world. Gwyneth Paltrow, who was Herschkopf’s patient for a time, was among the guests, Markowitz says.

Another famous writer, who asked that her name not be included in this article, said she never went to the Southampton parties, though she attended a Passover seder with Herschkopf and his family once at their Manhattan apartment.

“Does this come as a great shock to me? No,” she said. “There is something about him, his obsession with famous people, and he always seemed to be sidling up to famous literary people. I personally would never recommend him to anyone.”

Major Modern Orthodox rabbis and communal leaders were also invited to the summer parties: Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of the Ramaz School and Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun; Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue; his son Rabbi Marc Schneier of The Hampton Synagogue; and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, the author of many books on Jewish literacy and Jewish ethics.

In Code of Jewish Ethics Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself, Herschkopf is the first person among dozens Telushkin thanks in his acknowledgments. Telushkin also cites the psychiatrist several times throughout its pages. Telushkin did not respond to email and voicemail messages left by JTA.

Psychiatrist Samuel Klagsbrun and his wife, writer Francine Klagsbrun, were invited to the parties.

“We may have gone. I don’t know him particularly well,” said Samuel Klagsbrun, who founded Four Winds Hospitals, which offer mental health services in upstate New York.

After being told about the allegations against Herschkopf, Samuel Klagsbrun said, “This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever heard of. To use psychiatry to manipulate people like that is all kinds of criminality. He should have his medical license taken away. He used whatever talent he has to manipulate people. The damage he did to Marty … and it besmirches all of psychiatry.”

Pouring salt into open wounds

I visited Markowitz in the Hamptons on a breezy June Saturday, and he showed me around the sumptuous, sun-dappled property. There is a large pool complete with slide, full-size basketball court, the tennis court, hot tub and modern sculptures. That’s in addition to multiple koi-stocked ponds and a professionally designed 18-hole miniature golf course – one of only five installed at private homes in the country at the time, Markowitz said. It was all installed at Herschkopf’s direction and paid for by Markowitz, he told JTA.

Markowitz looks a decade younger than his 77 years. He is witty and calm, and dispassionate as he recounts the facts of his relationship with Herschkopf. He seems content.

But it wasn’t always that way. In June 1981 Markowitz, then 39, had recently lost both his parents and was unexpectedly running their large family business, Associated Fabrics. In 1980, Markowitz was sued by an uncle unhappy that his late brother had left 50 percent of the company to his son Marty. Just the year before, Markowitz had broken off an engagement when his fiancee refused to sign a prenuptial agreement. It was a stressful and painful time.

He turned to his rabbi, Shlomo Riskin, at the time Lincoln Square Synagogue’s leader, who had brought Markowitz closer to Judaism. Riskin referred Markowitz to Herschkopf, then a young psychiatrist in his late 20s. 

Markowitz began seeing Herschkopf three times a week.

“Very quietly, over about an 18-month period, Ike started pouring salt into all of my open wounds,” Markowitz said. “He got my sister and her children and all of my blood relatives and close friends out of my life. A constant mantra from Ike was he’d say ‘you can’t handle the truth. You’re passive aggressive, you can’t handle confrontation, you’re going to screw up the business and lose customers.’”

As he eroded what remained of Markowitz’s fragile confidence, Herschkopf gradually began insinuating himself into management decisions at Associated Fabrics.

Phyllis Shapiro, Markowitz’s younger sister by three years, then worked at the fabric company. In early 1983, Herschkopf “instructed me to serially lower Phyllis’s pay by $5,000, which I did several times,” Markowitz told JTA.

The psychiatrist told Markowitz to have a second bar mitzvah in May 1983, and not to invite his sister or her children. Afterward, Shapiro flew to Switzerland, according to the podcast, and removed money inherited from their parents from a bank account held jointly with her brother, removed gold coins from a jointly owned safe deposit box and took bonds from Markowitz’s apartment.

“At Dr. Ike’s insistence I fired Phyllis from Associated Fabrics,” Markowitz wrote on a timeline of events he shared with me in Southampton.

Markowitz wrote a letter he said Herschkopf drafted stating that “no one in the family would ever inherit any of my money.” At the psychiatrist’s insistence he hired a messenger to deliver the letter, who left it with Shapiro’s then 11-year-old daughter.

After guiding Markowitz to cut off all those relationships, “Ike said, ‘you don’t have a family? Don’t worry. My family will be your family, my kids like your nieces and nephews and we’re going to make a social life for you,’” Markowitz recounted.

In February 1984, Herschkopf “instructed me to create the Yaron Foundation,” Markowitz wrote on his timeline. “Dr. Ike, Rebecca (his wife) and I are the officers and directors. Simultaneously he convinces me to execute a will leaving my entire estate to the Yaron Foundation. Dr. Ike is the sole executor of the will.”

That year Markowitz and his sister were at terrible odds. They agreed to let Rabbi Riskin settle their conflict and, after a beit din, or rabbinical court, Riskin issued a ruling dividing the assets between them, which they both accepted.

After that, “I didn’t see my sister for 27 years,” Markowitz told JTA.

“I had a ring in my nose and he was leading me around,” he said of Herschkopf.

Asked if he felt any internal resistance to the demands his psychiatrist was making, Markowitz said, “I had to put my feelings down. If my sister contacted me, if she left a message or sent me a birthday or New Year’s card, he instructed [me] to ‘bring all those things into me.’ We would listen to it together and he would interpret it.”

‘I was choking to death’

At the time, Markowitz owned only the Southampton property that is now the guest house. In September 1986, Markowitz said, Herschkopf instructed him to buy the adjoining property. The properties were connected, and the first of what would become the legendary summer parties was held in June 1987 at the property Herschkopf began presenting as his own.

Framed photos of Herschkopf with celebrities covered every interior wall of the house. Herschkopf would instruct Markowitz to have them framed at his patient’s expense. He also had Markowitz type up every manuscript of the 12 books he wrote, most of which have not been published.

To the parties, “each invitation came from Dr. Ike and his family, with no mention of me,” Markowitz wrote on his timeline.

Markowitz began feeling stirrings of discontent with his psychiatrist when the doctor insisted that he keep the business in Manhattan, in space he could no longer afford.

“I was choking to death,” he said. “We were four or five months away from bankruptcy,” both because of the rent and the fees he was paying his psychiatrist straight out of the business.

Markowitz said that in 1995, he also lost over $1.5 million he had invested, at Herschkopf’s recommendation, in the Bennett Funding Group, which filed for bankruptcy after the SEC filed fraud charges. At the time it was the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

Markowitz said he broke away from Herschkopf in 2010 after Markowitz had a hernia operation and Herschkopf didn’t check in with his patient and supposed friend of almost 40 years.

“I was devastated,” Markowitz said. “I began to question the whole basis of our relationship.”

Using lessons learned from Herschkopf, Markowitz wrote a letter saying he wanted to take a break. The doctor wrote back warning that Markowitz was making a terrible mistake and would lose his business to manipulative employees.

In December, Markowitz reached out to his sister, Phyllis. When she answered the phone, she told him, “I’ve been waiting for this call for 27 years.”

Though it took some of her children a while to trust him again, they are now closer than ever.

In the years since 2010, brother and sister have biked together through Italy and traveled to China. Shapiro spends lots of time now at the Southampton estate, where she takes daily tennis lessons and plays competitively. The day I visited, neighbors dropped by – including Joe Nocera, who lives next door. The two first met years ago, when Herschkopf invited him to one of the summer parties and Nocera, like everyone else, thought Markowitz was the psychiatrist’s employee.

Seeking justice

Things have turned around for Markowitz.

“Once I started running the company totally by myself I got my mojo back,” Markowitz told JTA. “I’m a graduate of the Wharton School and NYU Law – I’ve got some serious CV going on!”

The business is smaller, but it’s turning a profit for the first time in many years.

“I’m the happiest I’ve been for many, many years,” Markowitz said.

According to Markowitz, two more of Herschkopf’s patients, with similar stories of being manipulated, also have stepped forward, though neither he nor Nocera would divulge their names or agree to contact them on JTA’s behalf.

Markowitz’s one remaining goal is to make sure Herschkopf is professionally disciplined for his ethical breaches. Complaints he filed with the New York State Department of Health in 2012 have gone nowhere. And Herschkopf resigned from the American Psychiatric Association, Markowitz said, after being notified that it was going to commence an investigation into his conduct.

In the podcast, Markowitz describes a conversation with an Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) employee who informs him that the complaint is in process but offers nothing more. A search of Herschkopf’s name on the OPMC section of the DOH website turned up nothing.

“I want justice to be served and to me, him losing his [medical] license is justice,” Markowitz said. “I just don’t want him to do this to anyone else.”

CAP: Martin Markowitz and his sister, Phyllis Shapiro, reconciled after 27 years apart. Credit: Debra Nussbaum Cohen