Search Results for: ABUSE

Why Is Mesirah Permitted Against Corona-Era Minyanim, but Not CHILD ABUSERS?!

The Snitching Double Standard: Covid-19 vs. Child Sex Abuse

Many prominent Haredi poskim have authorized reporting illegal minyanim to the police. They say nothing about needing to get the approval of a rabbi on a case-by-case basis.

This is very different from the standard for most Agudath Israel affiliated rabbis who still insist that one must consult with a rabbi before reporting child sex abuse to the authorities.

What does this say about the concern for children whose down the line consequences of abuse can include overdoses, suicides, lifelong anguish, and diminished social and financial success?

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From Frum Follies, here.

Agudas Yisrael on Child Sex Abuse – The Record

Agudah on Pedophilia: Too Little, Too Late!

I am a non-partisan critic of Jewish organizations. I will go after any group that enables child abuse. In my last post I revealed Satmar’s sad history in the case of Yisroel Moshe (Israel) Weingarten.  Today I want to talk about Agudath Israel of America. They think of themselves as the voice of torah-true Jewry. Yet they are guilty of collusion with the ongoing epidemic of sexual abuse of children by frum Jews. They can hurl thunderbolts to confront a modern orthodox rabbi who ordains one woman. They can mobilize their masses for rachmonis on Martin Grossman, a vicious Jewish murderer. But suddenly they loose their oomph and speak bikol dmamah dakah when it comes to child molesting (unless of course the offender is a goy).

After being confronted by protesters two years ago at their convention they made noises about their willingness to confront the issue. A year ago, their lay leader, Rabbi Dovid Zweibel, Esq. used their convention to speak with passion about their dawning realization about the problem and their commitment to find a way to respond.  This year they unveiled their response. It took the form of high profile speech by the head of their Moetzes, the Novominsker Rebbe (Rabbi Yaakov Perlow). At their annual convention over Thanksgiving weekend, Rabbi Perlow devoted over 12 minutes to the issue. Below are his words, followed by my reactions.

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From Frum Follies, here.

The Abuse Awareness Revolution

We’ve come a long way – It is now commonplace to criticize rabbis for failure to deal with abuse

Not too long ago – only about three years – when I was contemplating publishing my books on child abuse, I was advised by rabbis, friends, and family that it was suicidal. There were two major reasons given. 1) “We don’t talk about abuse.” Stores told me they would not sell any book that had the word abuse in its title or used the word “sex” in it. Someone who had initially offered support for the book, withdrew it when he saw that I actually explicitly discussed sexual abuse in the book. 2) “You can’t criticize rabbis for failure to deal with the issue.” Or rather I was told I can’t make the claim that rabbis were not following halacha – it was viewed as an oxymoron. Obviously rabbis follow halacha because that is what rabbis do – at least Chareidi rabbis.

In fact, I was told that I was going to be put into cherem and that nobody would sell the book or buy it. Rav Sternbuch, however, was insistent that the issue of child abuse needed to be dealt with and he urged the publication of the book.
Fast forward to the present. In the past week, I have had the following encounters.
1) After kayaking on the Jordan River – someone gave me a seat on the overcrowded bus returning us to the parking lot. In the ensuing conversation, I discovered that he had a kollel for Choshen Mishpat. I mentioned that I was dealing with child abuse and C.M. 388. He responded that the rabbis either didn’t know halacha or were grossly misapplying it in regards to abusers. Furthermore, he had quit a good teaching job at a yeshiva because of his disgust with the school’s failure to deal properly with child abuse. Thus after a few minutes of first meeting another Chareidi Jew we were openly discussing the problem of abuse and the failure of rabbis to follow the halacha.
2) I had a long talk with a relative who is a solid talmid chachom learning in Kollel. He is very strict about lashon harah, respecting rabbinical authority and is strongly against Internet, smart phones and believes in Daas Torah and only reads the Yated. Yet he readily acknowledged that he personally knew cases of abuse that were mishandled by rabbonim and is fully aware of the cowardice of poskim in dealing with the issue of mesira and calling the police. He also expressed surprise that I thought that any rabbi would apologize for making a serious mistake.
3) Today I met a very well known Yerushalmi posek and rav that I haven’t seen for years. He remembered who I was and asked me what I was working on. When I responded, “Child abuse” – he readily expressed strong approval. When I told him my biggest problem was that the rabbonim don’t follow the halacha – this well known exemplar of the rabbinic establishment’s immediate response was, “I can tell you some really good stories about that.” There was no hesitation, no defensiveness. It was simply an obvious fact – such as the sun rises in the morning or objects fall when dropped.

Circumventing Rabbis to Stop Child Abuse

Child Abuse – How do we speed up progress?

Baruch HaShem we have seen significant progress in dealing with sexual abuse. Only a few short years we all knew that child abuse either didn’t exist or wasn’t a serious problem. The learned amongst us knew that it could only be dealt with by rabbis after two witnesses testified that sodomy or rape of a doreissa level had occurred. The crime of sexual abuse was viewed as a moral one – in which the psychological consequences were assumed to be insignificant. No one heard of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Everyone knew that the molester was some weird psychopathic stranger and therefore there was nothing to fear from the kind neighbor, charismatic teacher or wonderful father. Who knew about the complex and conflicting feelings evoked by a beloved teacher who groomed a child for abuse. No one could believe that a child would keep coming back to the abuser who was molesting them. No one understood that abuse caused suppression of memories that only appear years later. We all “knew” that if abuse was happening it would be reported immediate by an outraged child. Failure to even tell one’s parents or teacher immediately was viewed as proof that the accusations were false.

The police were never called because of the horrific sin of Mesira – which is such a heinous crime that it causes the loss of Olam HaBah (Rosh HaShanna 17a). Who would dare risk violating the complex laws of lashon harah as explained by the Chofetz Chaim? In fact the issue of sexual abuse was viewed by the average parent or teacher as being so complex that only gedolim could know how to deal with the issue. We of course knew that the prime consequence of abuse was damaged to prospective shidduchim for the whole family. Other harmful consequences of abuse involved ruining the reputation of a yeshiva or causing a chilul HaShem. However we really weren’t worried about abuse – because it was such a rare occurrence like being struck by lightning after winning the lottery. We of course were comforted by the assumption that the watchful eyes of the gedolim were protecting our kids from this scourge – and would never ever allow anyone to harm the hair of a single kid – and surely would not knowingly keep a child molester as a teacher or camp counselor for decades. After all didn’t they have the ruach hakodesh of Daas Torah that they indoctrinated us to believe gave them insight and understanding way beyond that of a mere parent?  Aside from that we all knew that the rabbis followed G-d’s Torah fearlessly and they would never be afraid to stand up to pressure from the community and peers. I mean everyone knows that fearlessness in proclaiming the halacha is itself a Torah command (Devarim 1:16).

Major changes started in 2006-2007. Rabbi Zweibel of the Aguda readily acknowledged that the gedolim had been ignoring the problem (“it was on the back burner”) until it came to the public awareness through the secular media (N.Y. Magazine “Do Orthodox Jews have a Catholic Church problem?) as well as blogs and a number of organizations. Child abuse has moved from an issue which was never mentioned in public to one that even Rabbi Perlow – the head of the Aguda – has publicly acknowledged at an Aguda Convention.

The major accomplishment of this phase was the mere fact that abuse was acknowledged publicly as a significant problem. Additionally it was beginning to be acknowledged that covering up abuse (contrary to the public statement by Rabbi Mattisyahu Solomon) – was not only not a good idea – but that due to the secular media and internet – it really was impossible to “sweep things under the rug”.  The Baltimore rabbis collectively issued a proclamation in 2007 in which they acknowledged that a serious problem existed and that they were not competent to deal with it.

While all of this is important, it is not my primary focus in this article. I did not mention recent events to provide a history lesson in the dynamics of our community. All of this is a necessary introduction of a very important question.

The question is – What do we need to work on to speed up the processes of change within our communities and within ourselves? How do we give victims of abuse the courage to come forth? How do we prevent abuse? What is the best way to comfort and heal the survivors of abuse and their families? (I met someone over Rosh HaShanna who confided to me that he had been abused as a child and now – 30 years later – despite intensive therapy he and his family still suffered terribly every day.) How do we get our rabbis, educational and community leaders to have the courage to deal with the issue? How do we get them to understand what action halacha demands of them – rather than what is the fastest way to cover up the facts?

In short – what is the best way to finish the revolution of dealing with sexual abuse? Suggestions are welcome!

Update: 9/16/13 One important issue is that it is necessary to change how we think about abuse. It is not that enough to say that it is wrong and needs to be stopped. It is necessary to understand on the most elementary level that abuse is harming another person and that can not be tolerated. See Simon Sinek regarding the greater importance of why we do things than what we do.

From Daat Torah, here.