Rapist Rabbi Trying It On Again
[
22 September 2015 ]
QUOTE
Dovid Weinberger recently moved back into West Lawrence some two years after
his abrupt departure from his position as rabbi of Congregation Shaaray
Tefila in Lawrence, NY.
He quit in the wake of revelations that he was sexually exploiting women
who sought his help for various kinds of counseling including marital
counseling.
UNQUOTE
Another Jew, another rabbi, another liar.
New
York Prosecutors Protect Paedophile Perverts If They Are Jews
QUOTE
For decades, prosecutors in Brooklyn routinely pursued child
molesters from every major ethnic and religious segment of the
borough’s diverse population. Except one.
Of some 700 child sexual abuse cases brought in an average year, few
involved members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community — about
180,000 followers of Hasidic and other sects who make up the largest
such cluster outside Israel. Some years, there were one or two
arrests, or none.
But in the past year, there have been 26. District Attorney
Charles J. Hynes has brought charges against a variety of men —
yeshiva teachers, rabbis, camp counselors, merchants and relatives
of children. Eight have been convicted; 18 await trial.
If the sudden spike in prosecutions is startling, even more
surprising is the apparent reason: ultra-Orthodox Jews, long
forbidden to inform on one another without permission from the
rabbis who lead them, are going to the police and prosecutors on
their own.
Members of this close-knit community, who refer to themselves as the
“haredim,” meaning those who fear God, reject modern secular culture
and keep strict control over what they consider internal affairs.
For centuries, disputes involving children, marriage and business
have been decided by rabbinical courts called beth dins, which do
not report their findings to the secular authorities, even when they
judge someone guilty. Taboos codified long ago during times of
persecution discourage community members from informing on other
Jews; violations can result in ostracism.
Now, a growing number of haredi Jews in Brooklyn say they do not
think they can get justice from the rabbinical courts, which in
several high-profile cases have exonerated people who were later
criminally convicted of child abuse. And although some advocates for
victims contend that the district attorney has been too
accommodating of the rabbinical hierarchy — a charge that Mr. Hynes
denies — more families are turning to his office for help.
Prosecutors say that since last year 40 minors have agreed to
testify about abuse in court, if necessary. And Mr. Hynes’s office
has been asked for advice by prosecutors with jurisdictions that
include other large haredi enclaves in the Northeast.
“What we have witnessed in the past year is completely
unprecedented,” said Rhonnie Jaus, chief of the Brooklyn district
attorney’s sex crimes bureau. “This would be inconceivable just a
few years ago.”
Children in haredi families are no more or less likely to suffer
sexual abuse than others, according to several recent studies. But
Ben Hirsch, founder of
Survivors for Justice, a New York group whose members include
haredi Jews molested as children in communities nationwide, said the
clandestine handling of molestation cases had kept leaders from
dealing with the problem and made it easier for predators.
Mr. Hirsch credits the Jewish press, therapists and rabbis in the
haredi population itself, and organizations like his, with bringing
the issue to light. Jewish blogs like
FailedMessiah.com and
theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com, he said, have also been “a major
catalyst,” giving abuse victims their first opportunity to vent and
connect without fear of being identified.
“People are rising up,” he said.
The father of a Brooklyn 10-year-old said in an interview that the
mishandling, as he viewed it, of sexual abuse cases by rabbinical
courts had persuaded him to contact the police immediately when his
son told him last year that a neighbor had abused him.
“I’m not one who believes rabbis are capable to handle this,” the
father said.
The rabbis themselves voice a wide spectrum of reactions. Many say
change is needed. Many more defend their internal courts. But almost
all concur with what one
Orthodox rabbi, Yosef Blau of Yeshiva University, recently
called a dawning revelation about child molestation, which was once
dismissed by the hierarchy as inconceivable among a people who
embrace an all-consuming religious devotion:
“Now,” he said, “it is seen as possible.”
In April, after bringing most of the recent criminal cases, Mr.
Hynes began
an initiative called Project Kol Tzedek, or Voice of Justice,
which has enlisted Orthodox social workers to encourage more victims
to step forward, and has dispatched trained staff members to
schools and community centers to talk about abuse.
Hailed by many as an innovative approach, the program has been
criticized by some victims’ advocates for its links to a haredi
social service agency, Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, to
which beth dins have referred men accused of sexual abuse. Critics
say that the treatment provided by Ohel has been inadequate and
poorly supervised, a charge that the agency has vigorously denied.
Mr. Hynes walks a fine line. He has cultivated ties with Orthodox
leaders since he was first elected in 1989. In an interview, he said
he did so partly because they represent a major constituency, and
partly to address jurisdictional tensions between his authority and
theirs. In an editorial last year, The Jewish Week said those
relationships had hampered abuse prosecutions, describing the
district attorney’s approach until recently as “ranging from passive
to weak-willed.”
Yet no prosecutor in the country has as many sexual abuse
investigations and pending cases against haredi suspects. “We were
able to break through because we have worked to establish
credibility in the community,” Mr. Hynes said. Some haredi leaders
said they had no quarrel with Mr. Hynes’s project. Yet one rabbi
mentioned frequently on blogs cites ancient doctrine that justifies
killing someone who informs on a fellow Jew.
David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of
America, a group representing many haredi factions, offered the
moderate view. “A broad consensus has emerged in the last few
years,” he said, “that many of these issues are beyond the ability
of the community to handle internally.”
But he added that prosecutors should recognize “religious
sensitivities” by seeking alternatives to prison, to avoid depriving
a family of its breadwinner, or by finding appropriate Orthodox
homes for children removed from abusive families.
“The district attorney should be careful not to be seen as making a power
grab from rabbinic authority,” Mr. Zwiebel said.
Rabbi Meir Fund, who leads a synagogue known as the Flatbush Minyan, said
that child molesters should be prosecuted, but that victims should consult
with a rabbi before going to the police. Connections among the haredim are
too entangled to discount the damaging ripple effects of accusations on the
accused person’s family, Rabbi Fund said.
Advocates for victims say similar views have informed some of the Brooklyn
rabbinical leadership’s worst judgments, allowing prominent rabbis who were
repeatedly accused of abuse to keep their jobs and reputations.
In 2000, Rabbi Baruch Lanner, a charismatic youth leader and yeshiva
principal who was the focus of students’ abuse claims for more than 20 years
— and was exonerated by a beth din — became the subject of an exposé in The
Jewish Week, which found more than 60 accusers. The article led to a
criminal investigation and a seven-year prison term for Rabbi Lanner.
Another rabbi, Yehuda Kolko, a grade school teacher at a Flatbush yeshiva,
was accused of sexually abusive behavior by parents and former students
numerous times over 30 years. The complaints were dismissed by rabbinical
authorities, however, until
New York magazine wrote about them in 2006.
Shortly afterward, the district attorney’s office filed sexual abuse charges
against Rabbi Kolko. But Mr. Hynes’s decision last year to recommend
probation in exchange for the rabbi’s guilty plea to lesser charges of child
endangerment incensed many haredim.
Partly because of that disappointment, some Orthodox leaders began taking
steps they admit they would not have earlier.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents a predominantly Orthodox section of
Brooklyn, began devoting his Saturday night radio shows on
WMCA (570) to what he called “the epidemic” of unreported sex abuse. For
six months, starting in July 2008, he invited victims to call him. Hundreds
did, he said, adding that 10 of the criminal cases originated with those
calls.
That same summer,
Asher Lipner, an Orthodox therapist and vice president of the Jewish Board
of Advocates for Children, persuaded a Brooklyn yeshiva to open its
doors for what he said was the first forum of its kind for haredi Jews in
the borough — where not just rabbis, but also victims, therapists and laymen
examined the problem of abuse.
“The good news is that 100 people showed up,” Mr. Lipner said. “The bad news
is that we had to keep the meeting secret. We could not advertise it, and we
had to agree that no one would discuss the fact that the meeting ever took
place.”
As sensibilities evolve, one father seems to have found a middle ground
between traditional and secular systems of justice.
When his 6-year-old son told him one day that Rabbi Kolko had sexually
abused him, the father said he resolved to go to the police because he knew
that the Brooklyn hierarchy had protected the rabbi in the past.
But first he made a detour. “I booked a flight to Jerusalem,” he said. “I
made an appointment to speak with a very prominent rabbi” who had written
sympathetically about abuse victims.
“He told me it would be O.K. to report this teacher to the police,” the
father said. “He told me that if I reported him I would not be committing a
sin.”
UNQUOTE
This was written in 2009. Has it gotten better since? The writer is
Paul Vitello,
presumably an honest man.
The Awareness Centre is providing the documentary "
Unorthodox
Conduct" in the memory of Daniel Levin. The
documentary was created by Canadian Broadcast Company in 1994 regarding the
case of
Rabbi Ephraim Bryks .