Case of Rabbanit Bruria Keren
(AKA: Case of the Burka Wearing Mother)
Beit Shemish, Israel
Bnei Brak, Israel
If you or anyone you know is involved Bruria Keren or any other group like her's there is a great deal of information that you might find as helpful. The Awareness Center's goal is to offer information, resources, hope and healing to Jewish survivors of sex crimes.
Please feel free to contact us if there's anything we can do to help: 443-857-5560
54-year-old, Bruria Keren, was arrested on charges of child sexual abuse and physical abuse of her twelve children. She has also been accused of cult like practices. Police suspect that the children were violently abused over the course of many years, including whippings with belts and electric cables. According to the Jerusalem Post, Keren is "the leader of a fringe sect of Jewish women with a Taliban-like dress code. . . The women who adhere to a dress code more stringent than that of the most extreme Muslim sects and a rigorous health food diet.
The followers of this sect/cult number as many as 50 in Beit Shemesh and are also scattered around Safed and Jerusalem. According to reports the women do not speak with men, even by telephone. The vast majority of the women who belong to the sect have secular backgrounds.
According to a Jerusalem Post article "Even in Beit Shemesh, made up of some of the most religiously extreme sects in Orthodoxy, such as Satmar, Toldot Aharon and Shomrei Hachomot, this group of women was considered ridiculously - even psychotically - zealous. .. The women who belong to the sect lack any recognized rabbinic backing. They rarely leave their homes. When they do, their female children, dressed in long robes, accompany them. The women's extensive face coverings make it dangerous for them to cross the street unattended."
Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation
or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet
their own personal needs.
Haaretz Article (Hebrew) - (03/20/2008)
Mother of 12 suspected of abusing kids - (03/25/2008)
Police probe father of 12 in child abuse case - (03/26/2008)
'Haredi code of silence must be broken in abuse cases' - (03/27/2008)
Beit Shemesh 'Burka' cult unveiled - (03/27/2008)
Arrested for `child abuse', the veiled queen of modesty - (03/28/2008)
To tell or not to tell, that is the question - (03/30/2008)
Behind the veil - (04/03/2008)
Rise in child abuse or a media creating 'moral panic'? - (04/03/2008)
"Frumka" Group Leader Arrested on Charges of Child Abuse: Reactions - (04/04/2008)
Also see:
Related Cases:
Related Information:
Background Information and The History of Rabbinical Ordinations
Haaretz - March 20, 2008
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=968619&contrassID=2&subContrassID=21&sbSubContrassID=0
Mother of 12 suspected of abusing
kids
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
Jerusalem Post - March 25, 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1206446101627&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A 54-year-old mother of 12 is under arrest for allegedly severely abusing her children, police said Tuesday.
A woman who allegedly abused her children arrives in court.
The Beit Shemesh resident is also suspected of failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children. She was remanded for six days by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.
It is the latest in a spate of cases of alleged child abuse in Israel, and comes less than two weeks after a haredi US immigrant couple living in Jerusalem were arrested for seriously abusing their two small children, aged three and four. One of them remains hospitalized in critical condition.
The suspect, who cannot be named by order of the court, was arrested last month after neighbors heard a child crying for help and objects being broken in the home, a police investigator told a Jerusalem court at a remand hearing on Tuesday.
It took police two hours to gain entry to the home, with the intervention of local rabbis. Officers and social workers soon uncovered brutal physical abuse of several of the children, including whippings with both belts and electric cables, according to a police officer's court testimony.
The mother is also suspected of breaking one daughter's nose with a rolling pin, leaving her children to sleep outside in a locked shed when they came home late, and preventing them from receiving medical treatment for their injuries. The mother said it was all part of their "education," according to court documents.
The father of the family was abroad at the time of the arrest, seeking charity donations, and had not returned for the court hearing on Tuesday.
When the abuse was discovered last month, only two of the couple's 12 children, who range in age from eight to 33, lived at home.
The two clearly abused children, including a disabled teenager, have since been removed from the home by social workers, the police investigator told the court.
When the children of the family were treated by social workers, it emerged that the teenagers had committed incest with each other, over a long period of time, the police officer said.
The teenage boy who was removed from the house told social workers that he had had sexual relations with his 18-year-old sister, and that he had told his parents and his rabbis, and that the latter told him not to tell anybody else.
The defendant, who was covered in several layers of clothing, did not speak in court.
Her attorney, who obtained a court order barring publication of his client's name, over the opposition of police, said the woman "did not speak with men," according to a court protocol of the proceedings.
The judge rejected the attorney request to place her under house arrest instead of keeping her in police detention, citing investigative material that presented "a very difficult web of physical violence and even abuse."
Police probe father of 12 in child abuse case
Jerusalem Post - March 26, 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1206446111181&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Ramat Beit Shmesh woman who is suspected of abusing
her children in court on Wednesday.
A father of 12 children who were allegedly abused for years by their mother was arrested after getting off a plane at Ben-Gurion Airport on Wednesday, police said.
Ramat Beit Shmesh woman who is suspected of abusing her children in court on Wednesday.
His 54-year-old wife is also suspected of failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children. On Tuesday, she was remanded in custody.
Police are now trying to determine if the father knew of - or participated in - the alleged abuse and incest at the family's home in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
"The question we are investigating is, did he know [what was going on], and if he knew, why was he silent," said Supt. Roni Markovitch, head of investigations at the Beit Shemesh police station.
The father has spent the last month in the US, seeking charitable donations for his family.
Police suspect that the children were violently abused over the course of many years, including whippings with belts and electric cables.
According to a police representative at the mother's remand hearing in Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, the family avoided police detection - despite years of reports of neglect and violence - by repeatedly moving around the country, and by refusing to cooperate with social workers and community officials.
Neighbors in Ramat Beit Shemesh said Wednesday that they had known that "bad things" were going on in the household, even as they expressed shock over the extent of the alleged abuse.
A teenage friend of one of the family's children, who lives next door, told Israel Radio how one of the teens was tied up for seven hours in the yard of the house as punishment, and was forced to urinate and defecate in his pants, his mother oblivious to his pleas to let him go to the toilet.
"What this woman did was an abomination of God," a neighbor said. "She did the exact opposite of what 'religious' is."
The mother of the family, who cannot be named because of a court order, appeared in court on Tuesday covered from head to toe in black.
She has confessed to some of the allegations against her.
For the past several months, only two of the couple's 12 children, who range in age from eight to 33, lived with the mother.
They have since been removed from the home by welfare authorities.
The case is the third recent known case of severe alleged child abuse in Israel, and comes less than two weeks after a haredi immigrant family from the US living in the capital's exclusive Wolfson apartment complex, were arrested for allegedly seriously abusing their two boys, aged three and four.
The three-year-old remains in critical condition, with severe head injuries.
The father, who had not lived at the family's home for some time, has since been released from detention, while the mother remains in police custody. Police are searching for another suspect in that case.
'Haredi code of silence must be broken in abuse
cases'
By Ruth Eglash
Jerusalem Post - March 27, 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1206446111188&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The code of silence that exists in ultra-Orthodox communities regarding physical and sexual abuse against children must be broken, and ordinary citizens as well as professionals should be prosecuted for not reporting such cases to the authorities, Welfare and Social Services Ministry officials and child activists told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
In light of at least two cases of extreme child abuse and incest exposed in the last two weeks - both of which took place in ultra-Orthodox families - those working with children told the Post that there must have been signs these atrocities were being committed, but neighbors, extended family, educational professionals and rabbis did nothing to alert the authorities.
"I don't believe that no one knew what was going on in these families," Hannah Slutzky, national supervisor for child affairs in the Welfare and Social Services Ministry, said in an interview. "It is not only the perpetrators of the acts who need to be brought to justice, but also the people who fail to report such crimes."
Children's rights activist Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, director of the National Council for the Child, commented: "Since the law [known as the Good Samaritan Law, obligating both professionals and citizens to report cases of suspected child abuse] was enacted 18 years ago, I think only about five people have been brought to justice for not speaking out."
He continued, "It is not just that it is not nice to keep quiet - people are actually breaking the law."
He added that one did not have to be certain that abuse was taking place in order to report it; even a slight suspicion should warrant the most basic call to action.
The most recent case that came to light this week - that of a 54-year-old ultra-Orthodox Beit Shemesh woman accused of brutal physical abuse, including whippings with belts and electric cables, as well as allowing sexual activity to take place among her 12 children - is an extreme example, said Slutzky.
"There is a lot of abuse in the haredi community, and the people there are not willing to cooperate with the authorities," she said, adding that a committee was established by the ministry within the past year to work together with community rabbis to encourage the population to be more open to the authorities.
"It should be made clear to the people that protective services are there to help families and children in order to provide them with solutions to their problems," she said.
Dina Hahn, chairwoman of women's organization World Emunah - which was selected Wednesday as a recipient of this year's Israel Prize for, among other things, its work with children at risk - pointed out that there was a "code of silence" within the haredi world.
"People [in the haredi community] prefer to turn to their own professionals," she said. "But we are beginning to see that this is not enough."
Hahn also noted that there was a clear lack of trust between the authorities and the haredi community.
"We must call on the rabbis to tell their population to be more open about what is going on. It is not lashon hora [the sin of gossip and other harmful speech]," added Kadman. "People who keep quiet are partners in the abuse."
Asked whether the case in Beit Shemesh and the one two weeks ago of a US immigrant family accused of severely abusing their six children indicated a rise in abuse within the haredi community, both Slutzky and Kadman concurred that it was more a case of increased awareness and reporting.
"There has not been a rise," stated Slutzky. "People are just more willing to talk about it than in the past."
Kadman noted that child abuse cases have gone up in recent years, but that this was the case in all of society, not particularly in the haredi community.
"It is not fair to point the finger only at that community," he said. "There is a clear rise in violence against children in general. Sadly our society is more violent toward children than ever before."
Jerusalem Post - March 27, 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1206446111507&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A fringe sect of Jewish women with a Taliban-like dress code will be overcome by a major spiritual crisis after the arrest of the group's leader on charges of child abuse, haredi sources in Beit Shemesh predicted Wednesday.
According to haredi media and a well-informed source in Beit Shemesh, the 54-year-old mother of 12 who is suspected of serious child abuse and failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children, is none other than the head of a sect of women who adhere to a dress code more stringent than that of the most extreme Muslim sects and a rigorous health food diet.
"We always knew those women were crazy," said Shmuel Poppenheim, a spokesman for the Eda Haredit - one of the most zealously religious groups in Israeli Orthodoxy - who lives in Beit Shemesh. "Now we have been vindicated, and those women will have to stop their insane behavior."
Another Beit Shemesh resident and haredi journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous, predicted that the arrest of their leader would send the sect spiraling into a "major spiritual tailspin that would lead to its demise."
"I do not envy those women," said the source. "They are going to be facing some major soul-searching."
None of the sect's members, who reportedly number as many as 50 in Beit Shemesh and are also scattered around Safed and Jerusalem, could be reached by The Jerusalem Post for comment. They do not speak with men, even by telephone.
On Tuesday, police announced that they had arrested a woman last month whose name could not be divulged. Police suspicions were aroused after neighbors complained they had heard a child crying for help and objects being broken in the home, a police investigator told a Jerusalem court at a remand hearing on Tuesday.
The Beit Shemesh resident is also suspected of failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children. She was remanded for six days by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.
Until the arrest was publicized, the small Beit Shemesh community of women who wear burkas, multiple layers of clothing and full face coverings, was regularly ostracized by the local haredi community.
"We pulled them off buses and yelled at them, 'Desecrators of God's name!'" said a Beit Shemesh source.
Until now, these women sought comfort in one another and in their leader.
Even in Beit Shemesh, made up of some of the most religiously extreme sects in Orthodoxy, such as Satmar, Toldot Aharon and Shomrei Hachomot, this group of women was considered ridiculously - even psychotically - zealous.
The women who belong to the sect lack any recognized rabbinic backing. They rarely leave their homes. When they do, their female children, dressed in long robes, accompany them. The women's extensive face coverings make it dangerous for them to cross the street unattended.
Every week, these women met in their leader's apartment to hear her speak and receive her teachings.
A female Ma'ariv reporter who was allowed to participate in one of the lessons described the leader of the group as "a pile of clothing lumped in the middle of the small living room."
The reporter said the leader wore 10 skirts, seven long robes, five head scarves tied on the front of her head and three more tied on the back of her head.
The vast majority of the women who belong to the sect have secular backgrounds.
"As newcomers to the intricacies of Orthodoxy, they lack the kind of grounding and feeling for tradition enjoyed by most religious people who grew up in religious families," said Poppenheim. "Even the strictest rabbis who require women to wear black head coverings and black stockings understand that a woman must allow herself to be a woman."
Arrested for `child abuse', the veiled queen
of modesty
by Anshel Pfeffer
London Jewish Chronicle - March 28, 2008
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11&SecId=11&AId=59044&ATypeId=1
Jerusalem--A mother-of-twelve belonging to a small strictly Orthodox sect was arrested on Tuesday in Bet Shemesh, on the suspicion that she had not reported cases of sibling incest, had beaten her children and prevented them from receiving medical treatment.
The 54-year old woman, whose name has not been published, was arrested following numerous complaints by neighbours and reports of children screaming within the house — and at least one case in which a young child was forced to spend the night outside the house wearing only a vest. When brought before the court, the mother denied the charges but said that she believed in beatings as an "educational punishment". The woman refused to speak to the judge, saying that her beliefs forbade her to speak to men.
The woman, covered from head to toe in shawls and cloaks, was reported to be Rabbanit Bruria Keren, the leader of a small female sect practising an extreme version of the religious strictures of tzniut (modesty). Last month, the JC reported how this group of women believed in obscuring the shape of their bodies, covering their faces and having no contact with a man not their husband, practices frowned on by most Charedi rabbis.
According to police, most of the children had already left home, including at least one removed by the social services. Only a boy of 16 and an eight-year-old girl lived permanently at home. This week, they were also taken into care.
During the investigation, the boy allegedly told police that he had had sexual relations with one of his older sisters and tried to do the same with his younger sister. Police suspect that the mother knew but refrained from notifying authorities. At the court, she said that she was being persecuted for her religious beliefs.
People who know the family say that the mother was the dominant figure, with the father working mostly outside Israel as a fundraiser for religious organisations. On Wednesday he returned to Israel and was detained at Ben Gurion Airport for questioning.
By Tamar Rotem
Haaretz - April 2, 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/971602.html
"It's necessary to dress like the holy matriarchs. To wear a shawl, a skirt and a petticoat. Longer, looser garments. There is no end to making oneself stronger in faith. Be modest and you will receive a reward from Heaven. It is explicitly written that redemption will come only by virtue of women. Modesty is the woman's commandment and there is no rabbi who will say that it is forbidden to dress this way. On the contrary - this is how women will dress when the Messiah comes." (This quotation and others are from an interview conducted by the author with the mother accused of abusing her children, Haaretz, November 2007)
The woman at the center of the Beit Shemesh abuse scandal wraps herself in a length of black cloth, which she also clings to stubbornly in the courtroom. The covering eradicates any inkling of sexuality and conceals her face - her identity - in the name of modesty. At the same time it provides a metaphor for the screen she has put up, impermeable to any kind of rationality or feeling. Her sisters, her mother and even her children have provided testimony to the police, and the indictment filed against her at the beginning of the week discloses harsh evidence of the mother's abuse of her children and of incest between the siblings.
Through the wall of concealment emerges the murky substance of emotional and psychological neglect that is concealed by messianic-religious fervor. The veil is a motif that flows through the woman's tragic story. In recent years, while acts of incest were being performed in her home, she preached to women to cover themselves beneath their veils with more and more layers of clothing, to cover every exposed part of their body including their face and hands, on which they wear men's socks, following her example. In the fanatic circles of Beit Shemesh, the idea caught on and she became a female "rabbi." Her disciples spread the word of her righteousness.
Religious strengthening
"There is nothing worse than a married womans' hair showing. A married woman should have her head covered and not by some other hair, as women's hair catches the eye and leads a man looking at her astray. It is impudence to dress up and lead a man astray... I had the privilege to make many women cast off their wigs... I have lectured in halls in front of hundreds of women and they just tear off their wigs."
On a Wednesday evening in the summer of 2006, intrigued by the chance sighting of ultra-Orthodox women dressed like Muslim women, I knocked on the door of her home. For a considerable number of months afterward I continued to attend her lessons, which were both repelling and fascinating. Marginal religious groups are happy for any new member and the "rabbi" greeted me without question and with inviting gestures. To me, the leader of the small group of women seemed a bizarre, rather colorful type, wrapped as she was in many layers of colored cloth. As a sign of her extreme righteousness, the women told me, she would observe speech "fasts" and talk only once a week, during the lesson.
When she began to speak, her voice sounded grating to me, and chilling. I attributed this to her long periods of silence. Yet, the women's laughter and gay chatter made me ignore the feeling that presaged ill. She was a guru, a healer and a spiritual advisor all in one. Her most devoted disciples refrained from going to conventional doctors and they and their children were treated only by her.
The lesson meandered spontaneously from one topic to the next, without any logic: an exhortation about matters of modesty followed by an apocalyptic description of the punishment for licentiousness, and homeopathic instruction. One by one, the women received advice about various aches and pains, what kind of bread to eat (whole wheat), how to read a certain chapter in the Book of Psalms, and - as a bonus - a recommendation to tighten their sphincter muscles when using the toilet.
The women talked about the difficulties of carrying out the tasks of prayers. They seemed to feel hot and they sat facing electric fans. They drew encouragement from their "rabbi" and the other group members. They admire the "rabbi."
To whom have they not compared her? To Queen Esther, to Ruth the Moabite and of course to Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. All the women in Jewish history came to the fore to defend the thesis that it is necessary to wear long clothing as baggy as a tent. Like Muslim women. Nothing prepared the disciples for the harrowing turn the story would take. Ever since their "rabbi" was arrested, they have been in a state of total shock.
The woman who is under arrest is 54 years old, the mother of 12 children, four of whom are under the age of 18. She was raised in a remote moshav in the South, in a national religious family. After she and her husband, who was in the air force, married, the couple's religious faith strengthened. They became ultra-Orthodox and moved to Bnei Brak. About seven years ago they moved to Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, where she began to wage a stubborn fight, in the form of lectures and assemblies, against the norm of ultra-Orthodox women wearing wigs in public.
About three years ago she began wearing a veil. Her husband did not follow in her path, but he did not stop her either. His lawyer would later depict him as a "present absentee," and as someone who is totally under his wife's control. During the lessons, he was always in the house, behind curtains that covered the open spaces.
In the wake of her move toward religious extremism, she married off her four older children - the ones who are now being spoken about in the context of incest - to spouses from the most hermetic and extreme stream of ultra- Orthodoxy. The matches of three out of the four did not work out well, and they divorced a short while later. Members of Beit Shemesh's ultra-Orthodox community related this week that those matches had been default choices for both sides. The girls were pretty, they explained, but the family was problematic. That is why they married the girls off when they were only 17, to older men or young men with disabilities, including mental illness. Two of the children who divorced have become secular.
About half a year ago, at the wedding of one of the daughters, who married for the second time, S., a sister of the accused, saw her for the first time with a group of her disciples, who were dressed like her. "They held her arms because she wasn't managing with the veil and she wasn't able to walk," relates the sister. "They kept rearranging the cloth on her head. She simply enjoyed being served by them. From time to time, she would get up to button up the bride or to put a shawl on her."
Ticking social bomb
"For 10 years now I have been observing a speech fast. This causes prayers to be better accepted. At home they are very accustomed to this and they live with me in joy and peace. It also prevents a lot of insolence from the children. People very much admire the relationship between me and my husband and the children."
S. is several years younger than the accused. She lives in a religious locale in the center of the country, and is married with children. For more than 10 years, S. stood on the sidelines, observing her sister's gradual move toward extremism, which was accompanied by neglect of her children. She says she could not remain indifferent to this. Although she was not aware of the extent of the children's abuse - as described in the indictment - she suspected that it existed. She learned of the incest only recently, but her descriptions indicate that the whole family was a ticking social bomb.
But no one wanted to hear about it. Over the years, S. alerted the Beit Shemesh municipality that the children were not attending school, that they were not being taken care of and that they were roaming the streets neglected and hungry, but in vain. "Fourteen years ago, when I visited her home in Bnei Brak, I was already alarmed. The house was a mess, totally wrecked. I saw a little boy sitting under the table. You could see he was suffering from cerebral palsy, but he wasn't being cared for. I tried to hug the girls and they recoiled. It looked like they weren't getting any attention from their parents."
Several years later, when she realized that four of the children weren't attending school at all, she contacted the municipality. "They sent a truant officer, who handed in a comprehensive report on how the children were neglected and really weren't going to school," says S. "But they didn't enforce his recommendations. After yelling and yelling, I'd get worn out. Months later I'd start sending letters again."
Twice she spoke about the neglect on the part of the Beit Shemesh welfare authorities on the Arutz Sheva station radio. In the wake of her becoming involved, the accused cut off all contact with her sister, apart from rare meetings at family weddings.
In 2006, the other children, especially the sons, contacted their grandmother and through her, got in touch with their two aunts, S. and E. They started spending Shabbat alternately with the grandmother and the aunts and, above all, they began to talk. "They'd simply grown up and were no longer under her control," says S.
The grandmother noticed abnormal behavior, especially between one brother and one sister. According to S., the sister started doing drugs and at some point she met a man who brought her into prostitution. S. again began to sound the alarm and to write letters. In the wake of great efforts, she managed to get her 17-year-old nephew into a therapeutic yeshiva in the North, with the father's agreement. The boy began talking with the yeshiva's social worker, who later revealed the entire scandal.
The boy told his grandmother and his aunts about his visits in Beit Shemesh and how he saw the younger children roaming around hungry, neglected and filthy in the streets. S. immediately contacted the town's education and welfare departments. The head of the welfare department wrote to her that a social worker would be in touch with the family and that "we will make an effort to help the children with every means at our disposal." Additionally, a truant officer was sent, who paid a visit to each of the schools the children were enrolled in, and found that the children were attending.
In August 2007, S. complained to the Welfare Ministry's appeals committee that the Beit Shemesh municipality had not involved any agency that could examine the mother's ability to parent and care for her children. The director of the Welfare Ministry's Jerusalem district responded: "Because of the right to privacy, we will not be able to continue to share information about the treatment of that family." It should be noted that nothing at all was done.
The father of the accused died on the same day the mentally disabled son was found wandering outside the home, hungry and dizzy, after he had spent the entire night outside the house, crying, while his mother refused to let him in. S. believes there is a connection between this incident and her father's death. She says the root of the abnormal behavior should be sought in their nuclear family (eight siblings - five sisters and three brothers). "Our father used to beat us all. My mother was a weak woman who did not manage to protect us." Of her sister she says: "All these years she has been looking for love. She fantasizes about greatness. She tried to become an outstanding homeopath and it didn't work. Then she became a saint."
'Her day has come'
"It is very difficult for me, all this. Not to leave the house. Not to talk. To cover myself up. But all those years I was guided from Heaven. And anyway I always hated leaving the house... I am not a female rabbi. They decided to call me a 'rabbi,' and no matter how much I explain to them that I am not a rabbi, it doesn't help. I always pray that people will not honor me and will not say that I am a saint, because that isn't true at all."
At court and in jail, the accused is mostly wrapped in total darkness, spending most of the time under the blanket that covers her. She is neither eating nor drinking, because of her vegan diet, which the jail has a hard time accommodating. But she is not cut off. She speaks freely with her lawyer, Vered Birger from the Public Defender's Office. Birger relates that at their very first meeting the woman gave her a detailed lecture on the subject of modesty. But Birger says she respects her. "I came in a skirt that stops above the knee. She asked me to change it. I didn't wear it again when I went to see her."
Does she feel that her client is manipulating her? "I respect her beliefs," Birger replies. But the accused does stipulate conditions through the veil. During interrogations, she refused to speak if a male investigator was present. On Tuesday she did not speak in the District Court, in the presence of the male judge.
"She enjoys being in control," says her sister S. "Why do they believe her? After all, she is continuing to deceive and it's impossible to deceive people all of the time. Her day has come," she continues. "And I hope for her sake that they will help her and give her treatment."
None of the women from the veiled circle came to see their leader at court. "The lying media are out to get us, the women with the cloth," T., one of her most fervent disciples, told me. "I am afraid that they will attack me. In the street, too, they are pointing at us. But are we going to stop going outside? Let them hide. I walk down the street with a wonderful feeling of who I am. And I have chosen to dress this way not only because of our rabbi."
This week she came to the courthouse to sign bail for the accused and collected small donations from fans of the "rabbi," amounting to NIS 20,000 - an astronomical sum for predominantly poor people. She has also offered to host the "rabbi" under house arrest in her home. However, the group's leading spokeswoman has refrained from taking such a step. In fact, a conversation with her seems to indicate that she is dissociating herself from the "rabbi," even though, like T., she has denied the charges against the accused.
Dr. David Green, a clinical psychologist from the Green Institute for Advanced Psychology, in Tel Aviv, and an expert on cults, believes the arrest and the charges will not break up the group. Another and larger wave of women will join what he calls a cult. "We are becoming stronger in our faith," says T. She tells of modesty assemblies in Beit Shemesh, Acre and Ramle. "Everything in this world is a disguise; you should know that," she tells me at the end of a conversation, during which she condemned the media, the police and the court. "Just as some people disguise themselves as police and judges, we have chosen to disguise ourselves as the holy matriarchs and to cover ourselves. Behind the mask hides a saintly woman. In the war of Gog and Magog everyone will ask her forgiveness. And she will forgive."
Rise in child abuse or a media creating 'moral
panic'?
By RUTH EGLASH
Jerusalem Post - April 3, 2008
The scarf-covered heads of observant women shielding their identities from the media is becoming a common image in our national consciousness as each passing day we hear of more and more sickening child abuse stories from within our society, especially from inside the ultra-Orthodox community.
First it was the religious, Anglo-immigrant family in Jerusalem, where the mother stood accused of physically abusing her two young sons; next the burka-clad woman - apparently part of a Beit Shemesh religious cult - indicted Tuesday by the Jerusalem District Court for inflicting untold violence on six of her 12 children and allowing incest to continue unabated in her family.
These two gruesome cases were closely followed by reports of a Ramle couple, where the father routinely stubbed his cigarettes out on his children, and now the Netivot mother of eight, also observant, arrested Tuesday on suspicion of having sex with two of her sons, aged eight and 10.
Shocking, shocking and shocking.
What is happening to Israeli society and to the haredi community in particular, that people must hurt their children in this way? Has all sense of morality been lost? Have the ultra-Orthodox given up on the stringent family values they were once so proud of?
Secular people might even be wondering - when it suddenly seems as though every ultra-Orthodox person is abusing their kids - if something has gone wrong with the religious experiment.
But is there anything actually wrong?
Of course, one can neither ignore the terrible effects of physical and sexual abuse on these children, nor cast blame for the evils of certain individuals on outside sources, but do all these reports add up to a sudden rise in the number of children being abused? Could the explanation more likely be that we are just allowing the media to stir up our senses?
After all, their aim is to sell newspapers, and throughout history, humankind has always enjoyed a good public flogging, hasn't it? Is it that these reports also give us the opportunity to cast our own moral judgments and make us feel good about our own lives?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then it is possible that we are in the midst of a "moral panic."
Coined in 1972 by sociologist Stanley Cohen, "moral panic" refers to the reaction of a population based on false or exaggerated perceptions that certain behavior - frequently by a minority group or subculture - is dangerous, deviant and poses a menace to society.
In his work, Cohen discussed the way in which the media amplifies these feelings, turning them into a national issue.
"We have to study [these reports] in more depth to determine if this is a moral panic situation," states Prof. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has written extensively on the topic of moral panic both here and abroad.
"There has always been abuse of children," he continues, "So do these four or five cases mean there is more abuse, or that the abuse is gaining more media attention?"
According to Hannah Slutzky, national supervisor for child affairs at the Welfare and Social Services Ministry, there has been no official increase in the number of actual abuse cases, although the type of abuse might be becoming more extreme than in the past.
So that leaves us with the moral panic argument, which can best be illustrated by the 1993 murder of three-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool, England, by two 10-year-olds emulating scenes from the 1991 film Child's Play 3.
While it was not the first time that children had killed other children, what made Bulger's case into a classic example of moral panic was the national reaction to it and the role of the media in instigating that reaction.
At the time, the case was used by print and broadcast journalists to symbolize everything that was wrong with British society, from increasing levels of violence to the effects of television and movies on young children.
As the public debate increased, so the moral panic spread to academics and politicians who called for increased legislature and social policy on the subject.
When the debate on violence among children eventually slowed down and all talk of the phenomenon disappeared from the public sphere, did that mean child violence had been successfully stamped out? Certainly not - it still comes and goes just like any other hot issue.
"There are waves in media reporting," claims Prof. Tamar Liebes from the School of Communication at the Hebrew University. "And the same way these stories explode, they suddenly vanish again without much follow-up."
However, in the case of the current wave of public and media interest in child abuse stories, the obsession is unlikely to abate that quickly, observes Ben-Yehuda.
"My belief is that we will start to see experts and moral people call for a return to old ideas and values, suggest parenting classes and such - but of course, we've already been in that movie before."
And we will most likely see that movie again sometime in the future.
To tell or not to tell, that is the
question
By STEWART WEISS
Jerusalem Post - March 30, 2008
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1206632369438&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
It's the season for Orthodox scandal. From New York to Jerusalem, from Beit Shemesh to Melbourne, shocking tales of adultery and child abuse, infidelity and incest within the Jewish world are making front-page headlines. The latest incidents - a mother of eight beating her two youngest to the point of hospitalization, with no recovery predicted for the toddler; a mother of 12, practicer and preacher of an extreme form of female modesty, allegedly whipping and humiliating her children, several of whom admitted to incestuous relationships; the principal of a prestigious Orthodox Melbourne school dismissed for sexual molestation - remind us once again that the Orthodox community is not immune to the plagues of the larger one.
Is it right and proper - constructive or destructive - to air this dirty linen in public, to name names, to splash the story for all to see? Or should we adopt the sha-shtill posture which castigates the whistle-blower?
The observant are fearful of transgressing the prohibition of lashon hara - gossiping, rumor-mongering and character assassination that provides passing prurient pleasure to the perpetrator but causes untold, indelible damage to the victim.
Rabbi Israel Meir HaCohen was known as the Chofetz Chaim, from the verse, "Who is a lover of life? He who guards his tongue from speaking evil." He popularized the notion that tight lips and forbearance - that is, not everything that can be said should be said - provides a sure path to integrity, kindness and Jewish unity. Often, the word not spoken is the truest word of all.
On other side of the equation is the public's right to know and the need to protect society from those perverse individuals who prey upon the young or vulnerable. Protecting others from being cheated by a con man or abused by a serial molester is a societal need that overrides the individual's right to privacy. Even the Chofetz Chaim permitted the release of information that protects a potential spouse or future employer from being victimized.
IN A FAMOUS incident, a well-known American rabbi was visited by a man who confessed that he had just murdered his wife. The rabbi asked the man to wait in his study while he instructed his secretary to hold all calls. He then promptly phoned the police and informed them that there was a killer in his synagogue.
Sanctuary? Rabbi-client confidentiality? "None of these apply," he explained, "when there is a menace to society on the loose. Our first responsibility is to take this killer off the streets before he kills someone else."
The cover-up can be even more disgraceful than the crime. In many cases, the abuses are widely known for some time before anything is done about them.
In the infamous Lanner case in New Jersey, numerous rabbinic officials were aware that this youth adviser was abusing young people, but were reluctant to come forward. They either "did not want to get involved," or felt the rabbi was too effective in his position to let him go. Only when someone of great courage stepped forward did the news come out; only when the story was picked up by a courageous editor - Gary Rosenblatt, in this case - did the case go to court, and justice, of a sort, was done.
THE PROBLEM with taking a hush-hush attitude is two-fold: Many sexual offenders will move on to a new city, a new job, and repeat their abuses there. The fox always tends to find a new hen-house. Secondly, without publicity, the victims may never be identified and helped.
Long ago, the Talmud (Moed Katan 17) discussed just this issue. A prominent scholar was alleged to have committed various sexual improprieties. While the rumors about him were widespread, the scholar was also an important member of the community who influenced budding young scholars.
The sage Rabbi Yehuda agonized over whether or not he should publicly condemn the man and ostracize him. Though this would justly punish him for his actions, it would also rob the community of a valuable asset and could create a hilul Hashem (desecration of God's name) when it became public. Rabbi Yehuda chose condemnation, and refused to repeal his decision.
Years later, on his deathbed, Rabbi Yehuda faced the scholar, and smiled.
"Do you now mock me as well as having condemned me?" asked the scholar.
"No," said the sage. "I smile because I had the courage to condemn you for your crime and to hold fast to my convictions. In heaven, that will hold me in good stead, and the angels will smile upon me, too."
There is little to laugh about in these lurid events. Let us just ponder, as we consider whether to reveal or conceal, whether the ultimate Judge will smile upon us for the path we take.
The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra'anana.
jocmtv@netvision.net.il
"Frumka" Group Leader Arrested on Charges of Child
Abuse: Reactions
By Rebecca Honig Friedman
Lilith - April 4, 2008
http://www.lilith.org/blog/?p=300
The news broke last week, and the public, especially the Orthodox community, has been struggling to make sense of the whole thing and who is at fault for the shocking turn of events.
The leader of a bizarre sect of fervently Orthodox women in Israel, who cover every inch of their flesh and face in burka-like layers of clothing, was arrested "on charges of assaulting and neglecting her 12 children, some of whom are believed to have committed incest." (JTA). The Rabbanit Bruriah Keren, as she is called, has postured herself as a kind of guru to her followers, acting as their spiritual guide. She has taken on herself extreme measures of modesty in the name of serving God and encouraged her followers to do so as well. Even to those who considered her methods insane, the news of a self-proclaimed holy woman allegedly abusing her children is a shock.
The defense for Keren claims the charges are part of a conspiracy against her, waged by the ultra-Orthodox establishment who do not approve of her extreme ways. Honestly, it wouldn't be that surprising if there was some truth to that, but whether or not the religious-powers-that-be have had a hand in her demise, clearly something was very wrong in that household.
Still, there's also something wrong with the way certain parties have been reacting to the news, laying blame where little, if any, is due.
There's a general feeling of "I told you so" amongst those who have been following, disapprovingly, the whole frumka story since it was first featured in Israeli newspapers a while back. Keren and her followers' extreme displays of modesty have struck many as abnormal, even psychotic. How perfect that the leader of this sect is now shown to be, allegedly, a depraved individual, harmful in a way that is more concrete — not to mention criminal — than the fuzzy, harmful psychological influence she's had on her followers. Now everyone can agree she's a bad egg.
There's nothing wrong with that, per se, except for the hint of satisfaction (a-ha, I knew it!) such thinking lends to hearing about the abuse of children.
More disturbing even is the perspective of Life in Israel blogger Rafi G, who, after acknowledging that it would not be fair to demonize the whole frumka group just because one of their members is a "sicko," writes:
But now I have just come into more information. The woman arrested, it turns out, was none other than Rabbanit Bruriah keren, herself. The founder and leader of the group. So the group is not just an eccentric group with on sicko as a member. the group is rotten from the core."
Rafi G.'s statement touches on a larger philosophical debate about whether a message can be valid if the messenger's authority has been invalidated (can one can learn Torah from a sinner?), but it doesn't specify that the group's principles are rotten; rather, he insists that the group's members are.
Questioning the sincerity and basic goodness of an entire group of people because of its leader is wrong.
More likely, Keren's followers are more distraught and confused about this news than the rest of us. This more compassionate view was the focus of a recent JPost article: "A fringe sect of Jewish women with a Taliban-like dress code will be overcome by a major spiritual crisis after the arrest of the group's leader on charges of child abuse, haredi sources in Beit Shemesh predicted Wednesday." That sounds just about right. And, interestingly, The Awareness Center, which specializes in combating rabbinic sexual abuse, has taken a similar view, posting a note that treats Karen's followers as potential victims rather than potential perpetrators: " If you or anyone you know is involved Bruria Keren or any other group like her's there is a great deal of information that you might find as helpful. ... Please feel free to contact us if there's anything we can do to help," it reads.
But to go back to those "haredi sources in Beit Shemesh" who predicted an oncoming spiritual crisis for Keren's followers. With that understanding comes another implication of I-told-you-so — that following an "independent" spiritual leader rather than the established spiritual authorities will lead to crisis. Said Shmuel Poppenheim, spokesman for the "zealously religious" Eda Haredit group, "We always knew those women were crazy ... Now we have been vindicated, and those women will have to stop their insane behavior."
But wait, there's more: "Even the strictest rabbis who require women to wear black head coverings and black stockings understand that a woman must allow herself to be a woman," Poppenheim said.
As long as she's a woman in the precise way the rabbis prescribe, that is.
While it is in some ways refreshing to see ultra-Orthodox authorities acknowledging that there are positions too extreme to be psychologically healthy, it's also maddening to see them putting the blame for such extremism on others rather than acknowledging that, just perhaps, their own preachings might have something to do it. Writes the JTA:
Established Orthodox communities, including the fervently Orthodox Chasidim and haredim, have dubbed the sect "the Taliban" and described it a Jewish aberration. Some believe its members were secular women who in embracing religion took it to an unusual extreme.
Sure, blame it on the baalot teshuvah who don't know how to keep their newfound zeal for religion within the "normal" boundaries of Jewish practice. Indeed, most of us know newly religious people who go to greater extremes in their observance or religious philosophy than we might think normal or healthy, but these extreme ideas don't come out of thin air.
What the Orthodox authorities aren't acknowledging is that these women have been taking the establishment's own severe teachings about modesty to their most extreme conclusions: Women should cover their elbows, throats, legs, and hair — but covering their faces is crazy! Women should not be publicly acknowledged because it's not modest — but women who choose to stay at home and take themselves completely out of the public sphere are insane! Women's voices should not be heard by men lest they arouse desire, but a woman who refuses to talk to a man on the phone is a total nut job!
If it weren't so sad and so real, this whole thing could be viewed as a kind of satire — a group of women holding a mirror up to the society in which they live and showing the reality of the ideals being preached to them. The ideal of moderation, of striking a balance between taking part in the bodily/secular world and yet being apart/ from or above it, is one most consider central to the practice of Judaism, yet it is no where to be seen in that reflection. I
If the Beit Shemesh community can recognize Rabbanit Bruriah Keren and her followers as a distorted reflection of themselves, even if they can't publicly acknowledge it, perhaps they can find a way to restore some of that balance, and some good could come out of all this.
FAIR USE NOTICE
Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Updated Last: 04/05/2008
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead