The Awareness Center in the News
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.
Articles Mentioning The Awareness Center
Timeline
2002
Schools Try To Prep For Sexual Abuse - Baltimore Jewish Times (12/06/2002)
2003
Rabbi's Odyssey Reflects Struggle on Sexual Abuse - Washington Post (02/02/2003)
2004
Orthodox Feminists Debate Future - Baltimore Jewish Times (02/13/2004)
2005
Trust and Teshuvah - Goldberg Memorial (03/05)
2006
2007
2008
Radio Talk Shows
2006
A Jewish Perspective on Child Sexual Abuse Darkness to Light - Ethicalife (08/09/2006)
Online Video
2008
Letters to the Editor (of Various Newspapers)
Timeline
2004
2005
Fleeing The Scene - Jerusalem Post (06/16/2005)
Let survivors speak - Chicago Herald News (06/22//2005)
Rape victims must be honored - Christian Science Monitor (06/22//2005)
Sex offender registries - Kansas City Star (07/07/2005)
Combat sex offenders - USA Today (07/27/2005)
A friendly state for sex offenders? - Baltimore Sun (08/05/2005)
Convicted abusers just tip of the iceberg - Baltimore Sun (08/25/2005)
Sexual Assault - Baltimore Jewish Times (09/24/2005)
2006
Truly Missed - Baltimore Jewish Times (03/7/2006)
Don't investigate yourself rabbi - Miami News Times (07/20/2006)
Beyond The Pain - Baltimore Jewish Times (11/10/2006)
Violence unchained - Jerusalem Posts (11/28/2006)
2007
Awareness Center Articles Published
Timeline
2003
When a Family Member Molests: Reality, Conflict & the Need for Support - Many Voices (12/2003)
Myths About Male Rape - Crescent Life (12/2003)
Síntomas Comunes en los Adultos Víctimas de Abuso Sexual Infantil - No2 Violence Israel
Help I'm Burnt Out!: Vicarious Victimization, Secondary Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Compassion Fatigue. - No2 Violence Israel
2004
Nobody's Child - Aish HaTorah (02/2004)
Remembering To Exhale - Plain Views: A Publication of the HealthCare Chaplaincy (4/21/2004)
Schools Try To Prep For Sexual
Abuse
Deborah Walike Special to the Jewish Times
Baltimore Jewish Tiimes - December 6, 2002
http://www.jewishtimes.com/scripts/edition.pl?stay=1&SubSectionID=30&ID=2678
Victoria Polin says she wishes there was some kind of award she could bestow upon Beth Tfiloh Community School.
An alleged sexual predator was stopped Nov. 21 when the Jewish day school in Pikesville alerted authorities about Adam Theodore Rubin, a former teacher and coach who was arrested and charged with soliciting sex on the Internet from a 13-year-old female Beth Tfiloh student.
Ms. Polin says she wants local Jews to study and discuss the case over and over again.
"Right now, because Beth Tfiloh had an incident, it's an ideal time to get in," said Ms. Polin, who is developing an international Jewish organization to combat childhood sexual abuse and support survivors. "It is the time to teach kids about 'good touch, bad touch,' and we should honor those girls who came forward to tell the authorities. Now, what you should do is grow with it. It happened and the community should say, 'We won't let it happen ever again.'"
An Upper Park Heights resident, Ms. Polin has professional experiences with such cases as rape, incest, sexual abuse and domestic violence. Besides being an art therapist, she is a licensed clinical professional counselor recognized by the state of Illinois who is working on her Maryland licensure. Ms. Polin said that attention to reports of possible sexual improprieties is a rare occurrence. In the alleged sex abuse by Mr. Rubin, Ms. Polin said Beth Tfiloh's staff did all of the right things. They believed the child's story, listened to her parents and called the police.
But normally, Ms. Polin said, possible child sexual abuse goes unnoticed for a variety of reasons.
Schools, agencies and child care facilities are reluctant to report their suspicions because of liability in possibly falsely accusing an innocent individual. Many administrators, she said, are more concerned with the reputation of their facility and will "hush-up" a problem. Most importantly, Ms. Polin feels that almost all organizations suffer from a lack of basic education on the signs of sexual abuse and how to deal with it.
Since Ms. Polin has only been in Baltimore for a year, she said she does not know if any local Jewish facilities have training for recognizing, reporting and providing therapy for sexual abuse survivors. For this article, the Baltimore Jewish Times interviewed administrators from Beth Tfiloh Community School, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, Hillel of Greater Baltimore, the Beth El Pauline Mash Early Childhood Education Center and Bais Yaakov School for Girls.
Among them, only Beth Tfiloh had a "crisis team" prepared in what Ms. Polin said is a very specialized sort of training for sexual abuse.
"[Child care providers, educators and facilitators] need ongoing training, and it has to be by someone with training in sexual abuse," said Ms. Polin. "It can't be just any therapist because most are not trained in this area and most, without knowing it, could put blame on the victim, the parent, or the teacher. Once [teachers] recognize all these symptoms, the school has to make a system for reporting to someone who is highly trained in sexual abuse, beyond the administration, who may want to keep it hush-hush for the school's reputation."
Zipora Schorr, director of education at Beth Tfiloh, said her school has "a network of support" and the crisis team, and they openly discuss and train staff in sexual abuse awareness.
"Five years ago, I would say there was a huge amount of denial," said Mrs. Schorr. "But with all we've learned and all that has happened in the Jewish and non-Jewish communities, we have a heightened degree of acceptance and awareness. These are the ills of society, and the Jewish community is not immune."
Buddy Sapolsky, executive director of the JCC of Greater Baltimore, said the center checks all references and conducts a criminal background check for every employee. He said the preschool and Camp Milldale work closely with Jewish Family Services' social workers, who train the staff to recognize physical and sexual abuse and are regular consultants.
"Our preschool staff talks to the kids about 'good touch, bad touch,' and the camp people talk to the kids," said Mr. Sapolsky. "But those discussions happen based on the relationship with the kids by the staff. They are not required, but they are encouraged."
But Ms. Polin warns that criminal background checks and references are also not enough. Although she admits there is no foolproof way to catch a potential sex abuser, Ms. Polin maintains that specific training and aggressive reference-checking practices — including utilizing the disclosure of information available since the recent passage of Megan's law opening up access to names and addresses of convicted sex offenders — could minimize the number of predators hired.
Psychological testing, she said, would probably not work since "sociopaths usually pass a lie detector test." And criminal background checks are not a tell-all, since Ms. Polin cites the statistic that pedophiles will act out an average of 118 times before ever being reported.
"Pedophiles often go into service — Girl Scout leaders, rabbis, teachers," said Ms. Polin. "So people who hire need to be trained. They have to listen to words that aren't being said when they're interviewing, and when they check references they have to push for the truth."
Rabbi Naftoli Hexter, middle school principal at Bais Yaakov School for Girls in Owings Mills, admitted that his school does "not often" conduct criminal background checks on staff members. In particular, he said that when a teacher comes from within the local Jewish community, he feels it is "not necessary."
Rabbi Hexter said every potential staff member goes through a series of interviews, and the candidate's references are checked.
"Nowadays, we have to listen because of this new phenomenon," he said. "We don't in any way teach 'good touch, bad touch,' but we constantly meet to discuss, 'Are we preparing the girls properly for whatever they need to be ready for?'"
While sexual abuse is widely unreported and ignored in the general society, Ms. Polin feels the Jewish community is especially inadequately prepared to handle the problem. She said the idea for her organization, the Awareness Center, stemmed from counseling survivors of sexual abuse and the realization that there were no Jewish outlets for victims.
Although there has been little research done within any Jewish community to determine how prevalent this issue is, Ms. Polin said that the number of e-mails she is receiving since opening her Jewish survivors of sexual abuse Web site makes her believe there is "a serious problem."
"[In previous counseling work] people called looking for a rabbi they could go to," said Ms. Polin. "When they called a rabbi, they were told their stories were loshon horah [gossip forbidden by Jewish law] and no one would believe them. They were angry. They were abused, and they were abused again trying to find help. One of the main things they want to know is where was God during this time, and they could only find some missionary who was loving and kind to them."
Even before last month's Beth Tfiloh case, Ellen Marks, director of both Beth El Pauline Mash Early Childhood Education Centers, said she felt that sexual abuse was not "indigenous to any one community." But Mr. Rubin's arrest, she said, still shocked her.
"It's just unconscionable that anybody could violate a child," Ms. Marks said.
Deborah Walike is a former Baltimore Jewish Times staff writer who now lives in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Rabbi's Odyssey Reflects Struggle on Sexual
Abuse - Jews Begin to Confront Silence That Hid Clergy's
Misdeeds
By Alan Cooperman -
Washington Post - Sunday, February 2, 2003; Page A17
Also See: Case of Rabbi Sidney Goldenberg
During his 30-year career, Sidney I. Goldenberg taught math in the New York schools, served as cantor at two synagogues on Long Island and became the rabbi of a Jewish congregation in California. He was a respected teacher, a man of learning -- and a child molester.
Before he was convicted and sent to prison in 1997 for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl during bat mitzvah lessons, there had been numerous complaints against him. But each time allegations arose, he moved to a new community, leaving a trail of whispers and shattered lives.
Prosecutors, alleged victims and their families say Goldenberg was able to move from job to job because of a wall of silence and shame around sexual abuse in the Jewish community -- a wall that some believe is finally coming down, thanks to the scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests.
"In the past it was covered up, just like in the Catholic Church," said Vicki Polin, an art therapist in Baltimore who is forming an association of Jewish survivors of childhood sexual abuse. "Survivors' stories were discounted. They were told they were lying. Their parents would go to the proper authorities within the Jewish community and nothing was done."
While Catholicism has been hardest hit, almost every major religion in the United States has grappled with cases of child sexual abuse by clergy. Protestant and Jewish leaders assert that their problems are much smaller than those of the Catholic Church, with its celibate priesthood and global hierarchy. But they are moving nonetheless to shore up their disciplinary procedures, prevention programs and insurance policies.
In recent years, for example, the Episcopal Church has revised its disciplinary code and extended its internal statute of limitations to encourage victims of abuse to come forward, while the Presbyterian Church (USA) has eliminated its time limit on such complaints. The United Methodist Church recommends that two unrelated adults be present with any child or group of children.
The reasons are clear: Lawyers who have specialized in suing Catholic dioceses are turning their sights on other religious groups, including Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. Liability insurance costs are rising for synagogues as well as churches. State legislatures are requiring clergy of all faiths to report allegations of child sexual abuse.
"I don't think pedophilia has a religion," said Na'ama Yehuda, a speech pathologist in New York who is co-founder, with Polin, of the Awareness Center, an organization for Jewish survivors of childhood trauma.
The center's Web site (www.theawarenesscenter.org) lists more than 30 Jewish officials who have been accused of child sexual abuse. They include the late Shlomo Carlebach, a renowned Hasidic rabbi; Baruch Lanner, an Orthodox rabbi who was convicted last year of molesting two teenage girls; and Jerrold Levy, a Reform rabbi imprisoned for sex crimes involving teenage boys.
Goldenberg's story -- pieced together from court documents and interviews with prosecutors, alleged victims and their families -- is a particularly well-documented example of how some Jewish and Protestant clergy, like some priests, have relied on children's shame, parents' trust and other adults' disbelief to keep their misconduct hidden for years.
His trail through four communities in two states resembles the movement of pedophile priests from parish to parish. But there are significant differences.
Unlike the priests, who were transferred by superiors, Goldenberg moved on his own volition. The families of some of his alleged victims, all teenage girls, believe that their complaints were ignored or hushed up. But none has sued.
"In the Catholic Church, the issue was the cover-up by the church hierarchy. Here, it's the community, not the hierarchy. It's the whole community not wanting to admit trouble in our midst," said Yosef Blau, an Orthodox rabbi at New York's Yeshiva University who counsels victims of sexual abuse.
Goldenberg arrived in California in 1996 with glowing recommendations. Leaders of Congregation B'nai Israel, a small Conservative synagogue in the farming town of Petaluma, say they checked the 58-year-old rabbi's references, and no one hinted at any improprieties.
The rabbinate, however, was Goldenberg's second career. He had been ordained a year earlier at an independent Orthodox seminary, Tifereth Yisrael in Sayville, N.Y. Before that, he was a public school teacher and a cantor, or prayer singer, at synagogues on Long Island. And there had long been trouble.
In 1971, the superintendent of schools in Levittown, N.Y., reprimanded Goldenberg and sent him for a psychiatric evaluation after he allegedly made suggestive remarks to a high school student.
In 1976, school records show, he was arrested after another student complained that he had exposed her breasts. The charge was dropped when he resigned, and a lawyer for Goldenberg sent school officials a letter suggesting that they should not mention the incident if they received requests for references.
Goldenberg went to work as a part-time cantor and teacher at the Seaford Jewish Center on Long Island. In 1985, a member of that congregation, Donald Novitt, complained that Goldenberg had made sexual comments to his daughter during a lesson for her bat mitzvah, the coming-of-age ceremony for Jewish 13-year-olds.
"My first move was to call the rabbi," Novitt recalls. "I said, 'Rabbi, I have something to tell you that's about Cantor Goldenberg.' He said, 'I know what you're going to tell me. We've had complaints before.' "
The rabbi, Esor Ben-Sorek, later told police in California that he had received three complaints from 12-year-olds tutored by the cantor. Goldenberg "apologized, said that he was aware of his problem and would seek help, and I then informed him that he would no longer be able to offer religious instruction to girls in the religious school," Ben-Sorek wrote to California investigators.
One of Goldenberg's accusers, now in her thirties, is still angry about the synagogue's response.
"They did not fire him, they did not really do anything. Nobody ever apologized to me. I had my bat mitzvah and he was there -- he was the cantor who sang in front of my whole family," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "When I think back about that, I can't believe it."
Another alleged victim, Robin Patrusky, 37, said Goldenberg "spoiled my innocence" but that "I was too shy, too scared to say anything." "It has affected all my relationships to this day," she added.
Goldenberg soon moved to the Jewish Center of Bay Shore, another Long Island synagogue, where he was cantor from 1990 to 1996. Its former rabbi, Steven Rosenberg, wrote a letter to the California court saying he was unaware of any allegations before Goldenberg left for California. But he said he later learned that several girls had complained to parents or teachers about suggestive remarks and inappropriate touching by the cantor.
The complaints never reached him, Rosenberg said, because the parents and teachers were trying to protect their children from embarrassment, did not want Goldenberg to be fired or "could not believe that Cantor Goldenberg would have done such a thing."
In December 1996, Goldenberg was arrested by the Petaluma Police Department for molesting a teenager at Congregation B'nai Israel. Over a four-month period, the girl said, Goldenberg made lewd remarks, touched her breasts, had her lift her shirt, exposed his undershorts and coaxed her to reach into his front pockets for coins.
The arrest "really split the congregation here, because he was an extremely popular rabbi, and very few people believed this young girl," said the prosecutor, Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Gary A. Medvigy.
As news of the arrest hit the media, however, 10 women in New York alleged that Goldenberg had abused them in similar ways, usually beginning with dirty talk and progressing to fondling but not intercourse, Medvigy said.
Facing mounting allegations, Goldenberg pleaded no contest to a single charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor. He was sentenced in April 1997 to three years in state prison. Although he was released on parole in 1999, he could not be located for this article.
The manager of a Santa Rosa, Calif., apartment complex where he lived in 2002 said he moved out a month ago. His attorney, Stephen M. Gallenson, said he did not know Goldenberg's whereabouts. His wife, reached by telephone in New York, said he was in another state and that she did not know when, or if, she would hear from him. His name did not turn up in an online search of sex offenders' registries, computerized public records and telephone listings around the country.
Wherever he is, Goldenberg can still call himself a rabbi, because Jewish authorities say ordination is like an academic degree -- once conferred, it cannot be revoked. However, officials of the major Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbinical associations said he would not be eligible for membership and doubted that he could find work as a rabbi.
Jeff Zaret, president of Congregation B'nai Israel, said it has hired a female rabbi and made a rule that teachers should not meet alone behind closed doors with children.
"Everyone here took it seriously," he said. "They weren't going to sweep it under the rug and make it somebody else's problem."
Staff researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
Legislators reject bill requiring priests to
break seal of Confession
by Henrietta Gomes
Catholic Standard - March 6, 2003
Last week, Maryland State Senators rejected a bill which would require priests to report any information about child abuse obtained in the confessional except from the abuser. The bill was unanimously defeated by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee a few days after it was introduced by Sen. Delores Kelley (D-Baltimore). Asked whether the measure overstepped the boundaries of religious freedom, Kelley said during the hearing, "sometimes the state must intervene" to protect children.
Before the hearing, many Catholics from the Archdiocese of Washington contacted legislators by phone, e-mail, and fax, urging them not to pass the legislation. Writing in his weekly column in the Catholic Standard, Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said he would instruct his priests to disobey such a law and would be willing to go to jail on the matter. Breaking the seal of Confession would violate canon Law, causing any priest who does so to be excommunicated.
Since 1987, a law in Maryland has been in effect that requires priests to report all instances of child abuse they hear about outside of the confessional.
"There is a mandate in Maryland that teachers and police must report any type of abuse, and so clergy should also report," said Kelley at the hearing last week. Passing the bill, said Kelley, would be in the best interest of Maryland's protection of children, "who are most vulnerable."
Ellen Mugmon, representing the Coalition to Protect Maryland's Children, testified that the state must "regulate religion when children need to be protected."
Vick Polin—a member of the Awareness Center that provides resources for Jewish survivors of childhood sexual abuse or assault—testified "because many cases have been covered up in the past, the bill should pass." Polin added, "If clergy were mandated to report then these people (abusers) will get help."
Arguing against the bill, Dick Dowling, the executive director of Maryland Catholic Conference, said, "There is not one example of a person suffering of being abused because of our Sacrament of reconciliation." About Confession, Dowling said "this is a time honored agreement," and he said the sacramental seal of Confession is a central tenet of the Catholic faith. He noted that the current abuse reporting law, which respects the privacy of the confessional, was "carefully scrutinized by elements of the interfaith community: when it was drafted in the late 1980s.
Father Daniel Mindling, a dean of Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmetsburg called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, "an act of worship which needs protection. You can't admit sins with no guarantee," he said. "It would weaken our ability to practice our faith. We believe God instituted this," the priest said about the sacrament. About abuse, he said, "If I learn about it in any other way, I report it."
The controversial bill would have required priests to report suspected abuse heard about in the confessional from a non-abuser, such as a family member. Church policy in the archdioceses of Baltimore and Washington requires priests and any church workers to report suspected abuse to civil authorities, but information learned in the confessional is confidential according to canon law.
David Kinkopf, an attorney for the Baltimore Archdiocese said, "Our country was founded on religious freedom and religious exercise." He said the proposed measure would be unconstitutional and violate the separation of church and state.
State Sen. John Giannetti Jr. (Prince George's and Anne Arundel), a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said in a statement that his office received hundreds of calls and e-mails on the matter. "When a man becomes a priest, he takes certain sacred vows," the senator said. "No law should impose on those sanctified vows, and I am going to make sure that they are upheld.
Jewish Community Grapples With Sex
Abuse
By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer
Newsday - May 26, 2003
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-rabbi0527,0,3810252.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-crime
Also See: Case of Rabbi Yaakov Weiner
This is the first in a three-part series.
It was the sound of ripping cloth, they said, that woke them up.
On an August night in the Catskills, with summer camp almost over, the boys had fallen asleep in their bunkhouse, exhausted from play and religious study. Only minutes later, they would later testify in court, the noise awakened them. Then came mysterious movements in the dark cabin. The campers lay still. Why was a human figure hovering over the bed of a 10-year-old Woodmere boy?
The terrified boy blurted out his allegation to a camp counselor almost a day later: Someone, he said, had torn open the seat of his pajamas and sexually abused him.
The boy's parents were called to camp more than a day later, but police were not notified.
"We all concurred that considering the trauma that would possibly result from further action, it would be best not to take any additional action," according to the camp's notes, later filed in court in a civil suit. A state Department of Health sanitarian later found that the camp violated state regulations by not reporting the accusation.
Police learned of the allegations two months later, alerted by a psychologist who was treating the boy. The boy's mother later told a state official she felt pressured to remain silent, according to state health department records. After all, the alleged abuser and the camp officials were revered religious leaders.
The accused was eventually acquitted by a judge, who said "contradictory and sometimes retracting statements" left him unclear about what happened. The camp suggests that the alleged incident was fabricated.
After more than a year of charges and disclosures concerning sexual abuse of young people by Catholic priests, the story may sound familiar. But the camp, Mogen Avraham, is a popular summer retreat in Bethel for Orthodox Jewish children. And the accused was not a priest, but a teaching rabbi from Forest Hills.
The alleged 1998 incident at Camp Mogen Avraham is just one in a growing dossier of allegations that rabbis, cantors and other Jewish religious leaders have abused children and teenagers in their care, a Newsday investigation has found.
In sheer numbers, the problem is unlikely to rival the Catholic Church's, since priests outnumber rabbis by roughly nine to one. While there is no data on the number of clergy with sexual disorders, experts say that, anecdotally, the problem does not seem as severe in the rabbinate as in the priesthood, even in relative terms.
Even so, some rabbis call the sexual abuse allegations a "crisis," and religious organizations are grappling with ways to handle it.
"We have a huge problem on our hands, a problem that is just beginning to be addressed in religious circles," Vicki Polin, a psychotherapist, said in recent testimony to the Maryland legislature.
Polin, who is Jewish and calls herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, runs The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based clearinghouse that tracks sexual abuse allegations against Jewish religious leaders. The center's Web site lists about 40 alleged cases of abuse involving rabbis and cantors. As with the Catholic scandals, Jewish victims say they still struggle years, even decades, later with this betrayal of trust.
"I can honestly say that he ruined not only my Bas-Mitzvah, but my faith in Judaism," wrote one woman, now 30, referring to Rabbi Sidney Goldenberg. In a letter to California prosecutors, the woman said Goldenberg, then a cantor, made lewd comments and rubbed her thigh in her parents' home in Seaford in 1985. At the time, he was supposed to be helping her prepare for her bat mitzvah, the joyous and solemn religious celebration when a Jewish girl turns 13.
Goldenberg was convicted in 1997 of abusing a 12-year-old California bat mitzvah student, after investigators uncovered a 27-year trail of complaints by girls against him. He served three years and is now living on Coney Island, according to police.
Like the Goldenberg case, the abuse allegations tend to have common elements, including some familiar from the Catholic scandals:
Children and in some cases parents are reluctant to accuse respected clergymen. When they do, they are often disbelieved, dismissed, even derided.
"You have to understand the extent to which the guys in the school looked up to [the rabbi]," says one man, now 38, who says he was abused as a teenager by a rabbi now teaching in Israel. "He was beyond question."
And another rabbi recalls dismissing several girls' complaints against Goldenberg as "some giggly thing."
Religious authorities fail to report abuse charges to the police. Among strictly observant Orthodox Jews, this tendency is bolstered by the ancient doctrine of mesira, which prohibits Jews from informing on other Jews to secular authorities, a legacy of centuries of oppression of Jews in many countries.
When religious leaders try to investigate cases and prevent abusers from having contact with children, their efforts often fail. "Few rabbis have any training in recognizing abuse, and the rabbinical courts have no investigative arm," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, the spiritual counselor to students at Yeshiva University.
Alleged abusers continue to operate freely by moving among congregations, states, even countries. Avrohom Mondrowitz, a self-styled rabbi who once had a popular radio show in Brooklyn, is living openly and teaching in a Jerusalem college although he is wanted on charges of sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys, aged 10 to 16. If he ever returns to the United States, he will be arrested, according to the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.
Many of the alleged abusers were popular, even charismatic leaders, who were thought to be particularly good in relating to young people. Rabbi Baruch Lanner, convicted last year of endangering the welfare of two girls at a New Jersey yeshiva, sidestepped abuse allegations for years, in part because of his reputation as a dynamic figure in an Orthodox youth program.
Unlike the Catholic Church, Jewish authority is not centralized, but various groups within the branches of Judaism have begun to strengthen anti-abuse policies for their members.
At its annual meeting, which starts today in Rye, the Rabbinical Council of America, an organization of 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, features programs on curbing abuse, including one entitled "Rabbinic Behavior: Confronting a Crisis of Accountability."
"We're trying to establish that inappropriate behavior is inexcusable," said Rabbi Hershel Billet, president of the organization and rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere.
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a psychotherapist who is also the Orthodox Union's executive vice president, said he hopes the rabbinical council will make a firm commitment during the meeting "to develop a real, real tight program" combating sexual abuse.
The rabbinical council is expected to discuss ways to adjudicate abuse allegations against its members, with penalties that include ouster.
Sources within the organization say that the impetus for the panel's work includes old abuse allegations against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Kew Gardens Hills, which he has repeatedly denied, and the recent arrest of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum of Highland Park, N.J.
Kestenbaum, a chaplaincy leader for the New York Board of Rabbis, was charged in February with endangering the welfare of a minor after allegedly discussing sex with an undercover police officer posing as a teenage girl in a chat room called "I Love Older Men." Kestenbaum has pleaded not guilty.
Rabbis concerned about sex abuse say accusations against a rabbi are often handled quietly, or not at all. Accused rabbis go on hiatus briefly, then revive their ministries in other congregations, even other countries in the far-flung Diaspora.
One of those was Rabbi Matis Weinberg. Accused of sexually abusing students at his California yeshiva two decades ago, he is said to have agreed to leave teaching. But Weinberg resurrected his teaching career in Israel. When Yeshiva University in Manhattan recently unearthed the allegations against Weinberg, the New York school severed its ties to the Jerusalem college where Weinberg had lectured until recently.
Weinberg has never been charged with a crime and has denied the former students' allegations. Through a friend, he declined to discuss the charges with Newsday.
The allegations against Weinberg have been widely reported in the Jewish press and have helped bring the issue to the fore in recent months.
Like the Orthodox rabbis' council, representatives of other branches of Judaism say they are taking steps to combat sexual abuse.
"I would rather this not become an epidemic and I think what we need to do is take affirmative steps to guide people before they make mistakes," said Rabbi Jerome Epstein of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the lay arm of the Conservative movement. Epstein said the group's committee on congregational standards is currently working on a "best practices" document.
Rabbi Steven Rosenberg of McAllen, Texas, formerly the leader of the Jewish Center of Bay Shore, said his Conservative congregation already has adopted such rules.
"If I have a bat mitzvah in my office, the door is never closed," said Rosenberg, who also tells his 23 religion school teachers "they are not allowed to touch students, not a pat, not a hug."
"It is very important for me for my congregants to know: That kind of behavior -- we will not tolerate it," said Rosenberg.
Rosenberg was sensitized by the case against Sidney Goldenberg, the former cantor, who had worked at the Bay Shore synagogue before moving to California.
Many rabbis say their groups would always notify police about abuse although their rules usually do not spell this out. Such notification was one of the remedies embraced by Roman Catholic bishops in the priest abuse scandal. And Reform rabbis are in the process of revising their ethics code to include such a requirement, according to Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an Orthodox group, does have a policy requiring that police be notified, an outgrowth of its scandal involving Lanner, a longtime youth leader with the group.
In that case, a religious court called a bet din concluded in 1989 that the most serious charges against Lanner were unfounded, clearing the way for his continued youth work. Last year, more than a dozen years later, he was convicted in New Jersey on abuse-related charges.
Orthodox Jews frequently rely on the batei din, but Blau, a member of the Lanner bet din, has become an outspoken critic of the religious court system.
For one thing, he said, judges in the religious courts often know the accused, making fair decisions difficult. In addition, he said that perjury before a bet din is rarely punished.
Appearing in February before dozens of students in the main study hall at Yeshiva University, Blau and the two other members of the Lanner bet din issued an extraordinary public apology for their role in allowing Lanner to continue unchecked for so many years.
"We must do everything in our power to protect potential victims from abuse," the apology said. "This includes reporting accusations of abuse to Jewish and, at times, to secular authorities."
Such a secular-reporting requirement is controversial among some Orthodox groups, partly because it appears to run counter to the doctrine called mesira.
In ancient times, one who violated the doctrine and reported a fellow Jew to secular authorities could be killed on sight. Today, the punishment is generally ostracism in the community.
The vast majority of rabbis agree that mesira is overridden when there is imminent danger to possible future victims, but Blau says the taboo remains, particularly among the most traditional Orthodox.
Civil authorities who seek to act against rabbinic abuse often become frustrated by the reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Prosecutors in Sullivan County complained during the case that their witnesses faced pressure when they tried to prosecute Yaakov Weiner, the teaching rabbi acquitted in the Mogen Avraham case.
"It was a bitter pill for me," remembers Tom Cawley, the former Sullivan County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Mogen Avraham case. "They sent their kid to camp up here in Bethel and thought he'd be taken care of. Someone was taken care of, all right, but it wasn't him."
Weiner, who has taught in several yeshivas throughout the metropolitan area, consistently denied the charges. Attempts to reach him through one of his lawyers were unsuccessful.
The boy's mother and father, a rabbi himself, would not discuss the case with Newsday. But camp and State Health Department records filed in court indicate that the parents were not told of the alleged abuse until nearly 48 hours after the boy spoke of it, while the 36-year-old Weiner's father, a rabbi well-known in the Queens Orthodox community, was notified sooner.
Contacted recently, the camp's current executive director, Moshe Wein, defended the camp's handling of the accusation, saying, "There's no evidence to indicate that an incident took place." He added, "This may be one of those cases in which a child lied."
Lawyers for Weiner at his bench trial made much of contradictions in the boy's statements. But the most confusing testimony came from the alleged victim's bunkmates.
One of the boys reversed his story between the time he spoke to police and the trial several months later, Cawley said in court.
"We believe that there was pressure placed on the victim and children's families to get them not to testify," said Sullivan County District Attorney Stephen Lungen in a recent telephone interview. "There was a child who could have substantiated what was said, and that family would not cooperate."
The entire matter left Sullivan County Judge Frank Labuda confused.
"It is clear in the evening hours of August 8 and the morning of August 9, two years ago, something happened at bunk 3 Gimel bunk... " he said in his January 2000 ruling. But Labuda concluded that trial testimony "does not create a clear picture for this court of exactly what happened in Gimel bunk nor who did it."
He found Weiner not guilty.
Rabbi's visit canceled amid abuse
allegations
The Jewish community in D.M. received e-mails accusing the man of a history of child abuse.
By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE, Register Religion Editor
Des Moines Register - November 14, 2003
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4788993/22759493.html
Also See: Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks
A Des Moines orthodox synagogue has canceled the appearance of a prominent New York rabbi scheduled to speak this weekend, after the Des Moines Jewish community was barraged with e-mails suggesting the guest speaker had a history of child abuse.
Rabbi Ari Sytner of Beth El Jacob Synagogue had invited Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Richmond Hill, N.Y., to speak at an event today. Bryks had spoken twice before in Des Moines at Sytner's invitation.
Members of a victims advocacy network found the announcement on DesMoinesRegister.com and sent messages to the newspaper and members of the Iowa Jewish community, said a member of that network.
Bryks would not speak to a Register reporter Thursday, but in a May article in a New York newspaper denied the allegations, which are more than 20 years old. Despite the fact that he's never been charged with child abuse, Bryks said in the article that the allegations are like a ghost trailing him from city to city, school to school.
And to Des Moines.
"Rabbi and Mrs. Bryks have visited our community twice before in the last few years (before we knew of the allegations), and they were welcomed, loved and respected by all that met them," Sytner said Wednesday in a written statement.
"Nonetheless, I still have absolutely no basis for determining this man's guilt or innocence, and unfortunately with the program scheduled for this weekend, time is not on our side to further investigate. As a result, I have decided to cancel Rabbi Bryks' trip to Des Moines until we can further clarify the matter."
When approached about the e-mail messages earlier this week, Sytner said he believed it was a case of mistaken identity, noting that Ephraim Bryks is a common Jewish name. After Sytner received forwarded e-mails from "all over the country," he decided to cancel Bryks' trip.
One of the early e-mails came from the executive director and founder of The Awareness Center, an international organization dedicated to advocacy and education on sexual abuse in Jewish communities. Founder Victoria Polin said Bryks is one of about 100 alleged abusers whose names are posted on the center's Web site.
"Pedophilia has no religion," Polin said. "Some Jewish communities are 30 years behind the times in terms of addressing sexual abuse. In some Orthodox communities, they do not watch TV or read the newspapers. All they know is what the rabbi tells them. Someone has to speak out because nobody listens to the victims."
The allegations stem from a period in the late 1980s when Bryks was the leader at a Winnipeg, Canada, Jewish day school and congregation, according to The Jewish Tribune, a publication of B'nai Brith Canada.
According to various media reports, Bryks was accused of abusing five Winnipeg students, including a 17-year-old boy who committed suicide in 1994 after talking about the alleged abuse with his parents and police.
A 1988 report by the government agency, Winnipeg South Child and Family Services on a 14-year-old girl's allegations, said there was no evidence to support a finding of criminal wrongdoing, but said Bryks' interaction with female students was inappropriate. A year later, parents of a young boy took a sex abuse complaint to Winnipeg police. The allegations were investigated, but there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges, according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary.
Bryks left Canada in 1990, relocating in New York, where the allegations blocked his hiring by at least one congregation and forced his ouster from at least one other, according to the New York newspaper.
Attempts have been made to remove Bryks from the Queens, N.Y., Va'ad Harabonim, a council of rabbis that makes important decisions in the borough.
Earlier this year, Bryks resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America under criticism. In June, the 1,200-member Rabbinical Council voted to report acts or suspicions of child abuse to the police, a break from a longstanding practice of protecting errant rabbis rather than reporting them to civil authorities, according to reports in The Jewish Week newspaper.
Ragsdale: More faith communities struggle with
alleged child sexual abuse
By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE, Register Religion Editor
Des Moines Register - November 22, 2003
http://www.dmregister.com/life/stories/c2227777/22825815.html
American Jews have joined Catholics and United Methodists on the list of U.S. denominations that are wrestling with how to deal with allegations of child sexual abuse.
This year, the Rabbinical Council of America joined the other three Jewish denominations in voting to report allegations of child abuse to the police.
Prompted in part by the case of a rabbi, whose appearance in Des Moines was cancelled earlier this month, the rabbinical council reversed a long-standing Orthodox practice of protecting accused rabbis or trying to take care of scandal internally. The organization's ethics policy is being rewritten with the help of mental health professionals and survivors of clergy sexual misconduct.
It's a huge step forward for a faith tradition with a history of persecution. That history undoubtedly contributed to an ancient Jewish prohibition called a Mesirah, a mandate that no Jew should betray another Jew to civil authorities.
The urge to stifle scandal and preserve the status quo has been a common reaction for congregations that are confronted by allegations of sexual abuse of children by clergy. But it's a bad choice that ill-serves everyone involved - the victims, the accused, the congregation and the community.
Resorting to secrecy got the Boston Catholic Archdiocese in trouble, because when 50 years of accumulated accusations of sexual misconduct poured out over six months, it exaggerated the scope of the problem.
A similar reaction by a Winnipeg, Canada, Jewish congregation to allegations of child sexual abuse has permanently scarred the synagogue, the victims, their families and the alleged abuser.
Beth El Jacob Synagogue on Nov. 13 cancelled the appearance of New York Rabbi Ephraim Bryks because of an e-mail campaign to alert Iowans that Bryks was accused of molesting children nearly 20 years ago when he was the leader of a Canadian synagogue and Jewish day school.
Like the Boston Catholic cases, the charges are decades old.
Like the Catholic cases, synagogue leaders did their best to hush things up.
Instead of immediately asking police or child and family services to investigate, they held an internal "investigation." A number of meetings were held which reportedly disintegrated into yelling matches between the families of the victims and the rabbi's supporters.
Winnipeg social services agencies didn't get the case until later, after the congregation had taken sides and possibly victims had been intimidated. No criminal charges were filed. But investigators said Bryks' actions were inappropriate and unprofessional.
Bryks has always denied he did anything wrong. He left Canada in 1990 and settled in New York where he worked as a principal and a teacher. This year he resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America after some members sought his ouster.
Victoria Polin, founder, and Na'ama Yehuda, advisory board member of The Awareness Center, an international organization dedicated to addressing sexual abuse in Jewish communities, have said that Jews carry an extra burden when it comes to going public with a sex scandal.
"Over the years there have been many reasons why the Jewish community kept silent about sexual crimes committed by individuals in our community," Polin wrote on her Web site www.theawarenesscenter.org. "There is a large number of hate groups that would love to promote their propaganda on their Web pages and in publications by posting information about Jews who molest. Their eagerness is a reminder that anti-Semitism is alive and thriving."
Additionally, some fervently Orthodox congregations feel bound by the Mesirah, that no Jew should betray another Jew to civil authorities.
The prohibition arose because Jews have lived under autocratic governments and biased judicial systems for much of their history. Informing could lead to dangerous persecution of the entire Jewish community.
Congregations relied on the judgment of special Jewish courts to settle disputes and deal out punishment. While those courts still exist, their power is limited, according to Rabbi David Jay Kaufman of Temple B'nai Jeshurun in Des Moines.
"These special courts operated with authorities from civil authorities," Kaufman said. "They dealt with Jewish law, which many times was more stringent than secular law. It was useful for keeping community social structures intact."
While the local Jewish community is still mindful of anti-Semitism and avoiding scandal, it would be unconscionable for anyone in the Jewish faith tradition to hesitate to report a child abuse situation today, Kaufman said.
"In some states, clergy are required to report suspicions of child abuse," Kaufman said. "As far as I'm concerned, it is a good thing. My primary concern is for the children. The people who do this kind of thing usually don't have just one victim, so if you don't do something to stop them, you are endangering other children. I can't think of a reason that would morally or ethically make it allowable not to report."
The work of Jewish leaders who share Kaufman's attitude toward reporting child abuse and the Orthodox community's decision to embrace a reporting policy show an "ongoing maturation process for the community in general to have the courage and determination to act aggressively against problems which have always been with us," said Rabbi Mark Dratch, who authored the Rabbinical Council resolution.
"A lot of factors are forcing us to deal with (child abuse) to assert leadership and not just to look for cover," Dratch told The Jewish Week. "We need to do what is necessary for the welfare of the community and the integrity of the Torah."
Orthodox Feminists Debate Future
By Phil Jacobs
Baltimore Jewish Times - Feburary 13, 2004
The Fifth International Conference on Feminism & Orthodoxy is scheduled for this Sunday, Feb. 15, and Monday, Feb. 16, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, which was founded in 1997, is the event's sponsor.
The conference's theme this year is "Women and Men In Partnership," asking the question are Orthodoxy's defined gender roles unchangeable.
Workshops over the two-day conference cover many issues touching the overall theme. Its opening plenary is titled "Judaism as a Gendered Experience." The description of the plenary asks the question, "Is there Jewish value in breaking gender differences down?"
Topics of the workshops range from "Raising an Orthodox Feminist Child: An Interactive Dialogue With Mothers" to "Love, Learning and Laundry: Gender Roles Within Jewish Marriage" to "Sharing Life Cycle Events: Inclusive Ceremonies and Roles for Women."
There are workshops asking how men and women can work together to effect change, giving women more inclusion in ritual practices within synagogue life. Issues of sexuality, issues of divorce and the agunot (women who have not been given a Jewishly legal divorce by their husbands), and exploring gender roles within Orthodox schools are also on the program.
JOFA describes as its mission the expansion of "the spiritual, ritual, intellectual and political opportunities for women within the framework of Halachah" (Jewish law). It advocates "meaningful participation and equality for women in family life, synagogues, houses of learning and Jewish communal organizations to the full extent possible within Halachah."
Laura Shaw Frank and her husband, Rabbi Aaron Frank of Pikesville, will both be speaking at the conference. Mrs. Shaw Frank, an attorney, is one of JOFA's founding members. Her husband, Beth Tfiloh Community Day School's Lower School Judaics principal, has made the issue of gender roles in the classroom a personal focus.
"This is a getting-together of like-minded people to explore issues that don't get explored enough," said Mrs. Shaw Frank. She will be presiding over a workshop titled "The Politics of Gender in Confronting an Abusive Rabbi" as well as teaching a workshop called Kol Kevudah Bat Melekh Penima (All The Glory of the King's Daughter is Internal). The phrase from Psalms is traditionally cited as a prescription for modesty among Jewish women and as the reason why, according to the course description, "women should remain at home and not in the public sphere."
Mrs. Shaw Frank's workshop will ask how these interpretations can work in terms of modern society.
"We want to enhance the lives of Orthodox women as well as their synagogue lives and their communal lives while remaining faithful to the requirements of Halachah," she said.
The conference draws up to 2,000 people. "It's a real movement, and it needs a conference," said Mrs. Shaw Frank.
"I must live in a community that adheres to Halachah," said the former Wall Street lawyer. "It's of paramount importance to me. I have concerns and needs as a woman that I don't believe contradict Halachah."
Rabbi Frank will present a workshop entitled "Scenes from the Classroom: Gender Education in Action," as well as "Orthodox Day Schools: Can We Do Better?" The second workshop offers questions such as "How do we educate young girls and boys to understand their relationship to gender and gender roles?"
"My main goal is to have teens think," said Rabbi Frank of the gender seminars he's held at Beth Tfiloh, "to have them be aware of the messages they are getting around them. My goal is not to tell them this is right or wrong, but to make them be critical consumers of gender messages."
He gives an example. He asked his seminar participants once to free associate between Jewish men and Jewish women in the form of a list. What words describe Jewish men, what words describe Jewish women.
One of the words that was listed under the Jewish women category, he said, "mini-van."
He takes it to another level when he says, "What does it really mean when a woman wants to wear tefillin," he asks. "What does it mean for girls to see a woman wearing tefillin? Some kids have thought about it, some haven't. I want them to become thinkers."
At least one other panel will include a Baltimore expert, Vicki Polin, founder of the Baltimore-Based Awareness Center, an Internet resource for information on childhood sexual abuse.
More information on the conference can be obtained by checking the JOFA Web site at www.JOFA.org .
Web Site Tracks Sexual Abusers
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen - Staff Writer
The Jewish Week - March 24, 2004
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=9227&print=yes
Vicki Polin's efforts have received praise and criticism in the Jewish community
From an apartment in a fervently religious section of Baltimore sits a nonobservant Jewish woman working fervently herself on a project that has become the center of her life and is making an impact — for good or bad, depending on whom you ask — in the Jewish community internationally.
Vicki Polin, 44, created and runs The Awareness Center, an organization devoted to the issue of sexual abuse in the Jewish community.
Essentially a one-woman operation, the center exists only on-line, through its Web site, www.theawarenesscenter.org, and over the phone. Polin and her board members, who include prominent rabbis and professionals knowledgeable about issues of sexual trauma, consult with people who turn to the organization for help.
All sorts of Jews, from all over the world, contact The Awareness Center for advice, counseling and referrals, says Polin, who puts in 60 to 80 hours a week on the project. She says the Web site is visited by about 15,000 people each month — victims of abuse, called "survivors" in the sexual trauma community, their family members, rabbis, lawyers, law enforcement officials and others concerned about the issue.
It is a clearinghouse with layers of information that includes lists of clergy, therapists and medical doctors who are sensitive to the needs of sexual trauma survivors, definitions of different types of abuse, and articles published by The Awareness Center explaining aspects of surviving and reporting such experiences.
The site also includes links to relevant sites within other faith communities.
The controversial element in The Awareness Center's site is its listing of rabbis who are believed to be sexual abusers. The documents listed were all published elsewhere first.
In some cases the people named have been prosecuted and convicted by the courts. In others the posting is based on allegations alone.
And that, say some, is unfair.
"It's a dangerous precedent to have a Web site listing unsubstantiated accusations made against people," says one New York rabbi, who asked not to be named.
The site also lists rabbis accused or convicted of a broad range of sexual misdeeds, from viewing child pornography several times to rape. But in order to distinguish the degree of severity of the offense, a viewer has to wade through the pages of documentation that have been posted.
"It is like guilt by association," concedes Rabbi Mark Dratch, an Awareness Center board member and head of the Rabbinical Council of America's Task Force on Rabbinic Improprieties.
Rabbi Dratch and others say that the good accomplished by the organization outweighs the potential damage of some of its postings.
"People who are survivors of sexual trauma don't have many places to turn, and Vicki has succeeded, through the accessibility and anonymity of the Internet, for people to have resources, have places to call," Rabbi Dratch says.
"If we had more resources we'd be in a better position to separate different levels of offenses, different kinds of accusations," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, a dean at Yeshiva University and Awareness Center board member.
"But without a much larger organization, at this point this is about all that could be expected to do under the circumstances. Hopefully people will read the articles and not just see names on a page.
"It's a tricky business, at what point we go public," he says.
Polin agrees it's a dilemma.
"We're not doing it to hurt people. We're doing it to protect people," she says.
The site also names rabbis without identifying their denomination. That's because sexual abuse "is a Jewish problem, not an Orthodox problem, or a Reform problem or an unaffiliated problem," Polin says. "It's a Jewish problem."
With the help of a law clinic volunteer, Polin hopes to gain status soon as a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization.
The project was born out of her experience working as a counselor with sexually abused clients in Illinois, where she lived at the time, through an organization called Voices, Victims of Incest Can Emerge Survivors.
"I'd get calls from people who were Jewish, and I found that I had to refer them to Christian resources," Polin recalls. "I realized I was handing over Jewish survivors to missionaries, and that really bothered me. I started telling everyone that the issue needed to be addressed in the Jewish community, but nobody did."
She said a number of Christian organizations were dealing with these issues, "and it always bothered me that there was nothing like it for Jewish survivors."
Now her efforts are being embraced by the Jewish establishment, with 140 rabbis of every denomination adding their names to the list of endorsers. And Polin says she has more to add but just hasn't had the time to get to it.
In the last few months Polin has been invited to address the conferences of Jewish Women International and of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance.
Her organization is struggling to stay afloat, though, with a few small donations to support the effort. Polin says that with more funding, she would like to put together a large conference — a "summit" — later this year of rabbis and other Jewish professionals, professionals working in the sexual trauma community, law enforcement officials, survivors of abuse and their family members.
Another goal is to set up a rabbinic certification program, "so if we need a referral we can say `this rabbi has that training,' " Polin says.
"We'll provide about 40 hours of training so they know the different kinds of offenders and victims, know the difference between sexual harassment, abuse and sexual assault, and domestic violence."
One person who praises Polin's work is a rabbi listed as a sexual offender by The Awareness Center.
"I give the Awareness Center a lot of credit," says Juda Mintz, an Orthodox rabbi who was released this month from a federal prison into a halfway house after serving 10 months on charges of viewing child pornography.
"We know that dealing with clergy there has been tremendous cover-up and denial. There have been concerted efforts by powers-that-be within the Jewish community to cover up or at best minimize what is more often than not serious offenses," he says.
"If this is a mechanism by which those offenses can be uncovered and the community can be sensitized, that is all to the good. And I say this as a perpetrator."
First Carlebach conference to grapple with issue of abuse head on; opposition to street naming.
By Adam Dickter - Staff Writer
The Jewish Week - September 9, 2004
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=9867
As the 10th anniversary of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's death nears,
his family and followers are working on a tribute to the charismatic man
whose guitar-strumming, story-telling and bear-hugging approach to Judaism
inspired a worldwide spiritual outreach movement that continues to
thrive.
But the first international conference on his legacy may be tempered by past allegations — some dating back decades — that the pioneering rabbi harassed or abused women, although no such accusation was brought publicly while he was alive.
The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based advocacy group for Jewish victims of sexual abuse, has issued a "call to action" against efforts to rename an Upper West Side street Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Way.
And in planning the three-day international conference here in late October to commemorate the rabbi's teachings, Carlebach followers seem to be tackling the issue head-on by scheduling a session on boundaries between rabbis and their disciples.
Rabbi Naftali Citron, leader of the Carlebach Shul in Manhattan, which is organizing the conference, would not say if the session stemmed from the allegations, but cited increasing attention to the issue of relationships between clergy and their flocks.
"This is more the reality of what is going on in the last few years," Rabbi Citron said. "Sometimes people get very close to their spiritual leaders."
He said other sessions at the conference would include workshops on spiritual activism, how to start a Carlebach minyan, and new and old chasidic teachings.
Rabbi Citron said it was unfair to allege improper behavior after Rabbi Carlebach's death.
"Reb Shlomo was a great man, and it pains me that different things are being said about him when he is not here to defend himself," Rabbi Citron said. "People could have come forward when he was alive to talk about what he did or didn't do."
Amy Neustein, a sociologist who studies abuse in the Orthodox community, said until recently a perception of futility has kept such abuse victims from speaking out, as in the case of many religious communities.
"They tend to hide their victimization because the community has hitherto been unresponsive to their plight," said Neustein, who contacted The Jewish Week in response to an e-mail from the Awareness Center. "What they often do is sacrifice their victims on the altar of shame."
Allegations of impropriety by Rabbi Carlebach first became public four years after his death in a 1998 story in the feminist journal Lilith. The article claimed that he "sexually harassed or abused" women over the course of a Jewish outreach career spanning four decades.
In the article, several women spoke of encounters with Rabbi Carlebach involving inappropriate contact or behavior. Others said they heard from other women about such experiences.
According to Lilith, a group of Jewish women confronted the rabbi about his behavior in a private meeting in Berkeley, Calif., in the early 1980s and, after initially denying a problem, he declared, "Oy, this needs such a fixing," said participants.
Rabbi Carlebach split from the Lubavitch movement in the 1950s, rejecting the strict separation of the sexes, and forged a brand of celebratory Judaism that encouraged the participation of women. Across the country today, his presence is felt in rousing Carlebach Shabbat ceremonies rich in song and dance at Modern Orthodox and other congregations.
He was known for literally embracing his followers, male and female — an untraditional practice among Orthodox rabbis.
"It was a different time, a different way, a hippie kind of generation," said Rabbi Citron, a former student of Rabbi Carlebach. "It was no secret that he hugged and kissed women, and got plenty of flack from the religious community. From what I know of him he would never knowingly ever hurt somebody."
But Vicki Polin, director of the Awareness Center in Baltimore, which is dedicated to addressing childhood sexual abuse in Jewish communities around the world, believes that renaming a street in honor of Rabbi Carlebach would be insensitive to those who have made allegations against him.
"They also deserve to have a voice," Polin said. "It would be very difficult for them to walk down a street and see that it was named after him."
Polin's Web site features a page on Rabbi Carlebach's history, including the Lilith article.
Penny Ryan, district manager of Community Board 7 in Manhattan, which must approve the name change before it is submitted to the City Council, said Tuesday that she had received several calls on the matter.
"We asked them to come to the committee meeting when it will be discussed," Ryan said.
The meeting will be held Tuesday night at the community board's office.
City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, whose district includes the Carlebach Shul on West 79th Street, where the street would be renamed, said she had been unaware of the allegations against the rabbi until Tuesday, when she heard from the community board about the calls.
"I will go to the hearing and listen," Brewer said. "There will be discussions. I'd like to hear what everybody has to say. I know the daughters and the rabbi and I know they are good people."
Carlebach's daughters, Neshama and Dari, have started an online petition to support the name change.
"We have been given the opportunity to rename West 79th Street from Broadway to Riverside Drive in his name, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Way," reads an introduction on the petition. "It is only too appropriate to honor him in this way, to forever remember how he changed lives as he walked up and down this street."
A call to Neshama Carlebach, who has followed in her father's footsteps as an inspirational singer, was returned by a family friend, Corey Baker.
"It's too early, on such a sensitive issue, to be giving a comment," Baker said.
Rabbi Goldie Milgram, one of the women who told Lilith she was molested by the rabbi — in her case at a summer camp when she was 14 — said she would not oppose the street renaming in his honor.
"There are many public figures who had significant shadow sides," said Rabbi Milgram, an author and teacher in Woodstock, N.Y. "It is not for us to remove the places they have earned with their work but to rejoice in the good they have done, to provide opportunities for healing those who were hurt and not denying their pain."
Naomi Mark, a Manhattan psychotherapist and longtime student of Rabbi Carlebach who will participate in the boundaries panel at the conference, said the rabbi "never wanted to be a flawless guru."
As the 10th anniversary of his passing approached, Mark said she hoped Rabbi Carlebach would be remembered for his ability to empathize and inspire.
"He really understood our lives and the sense of alienation people sometimes feel living in the modern world, trying to juggle spirituality and Judaism in the context of the many contradictions they feel," Mark said. "He understood what those struggles are like and that's what made him different from other traditional rebbes.
© (2005) Carrie Devorah
http://www.goldbergmemorial.org/trust_and_teshuvah.html
Jewish Women International Magazine published an excerpt from David Berger's last letter written, 1941, before he was murdered by the Nazis. It stands to consider that David, like many other victims of Nazi degradation, was stripped of his sexual identity, head shaved, dressed in shapeless clothing, then dehumanized with verbal, physical and sexual abuse. When dead, Nazis left their victims, forgotten. David was committed to living eternally. He wrote, "I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger."
Victims of other abuses wish to be seen and heard, while still living. Some speak up. Social pressure and religious beliefs step in the way of their allegations being paid credence, so the abuse continues, a tradition, so to speak, passed down within families, even Jewish families, along with recipes for Passover's French toast, gefilte fish or chicken soup. Victims are reproached with, "he's a Rabbi," "you must be lying," "God forbid people should find out," "what would they think," and "it is your fault, he/she wouldn't have done it without you starting it." Plausible, except sometimes victims are toddlers, or younger.
Abuse is no longer a Jewish myth. Trusted people- grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers, rabbis, baby sitters, friends, and youth coordinators- are being reported as encouraging sexually inappropriate behaviours. The abused struggle to shed their shame. The abuser moves forward public in their life, their secret kept too often, allowing them to abuse again. Sometimes, the victim becomes an abuser themselves, even toddlers. On a recent airing of the TV show, "yes, dear," a pre-schooler mooned his kindergarten classmates. He told the teacher, he watched his Dad mooned a picnic. So, he thought it was ok to moon his classmates. Mooning may be a mild example. What does one say when a toddler performs fellatio on classmates, that children live what they learn?
Cycling non-sectarian behaviours of violence, neglect, emotional and sexual abuse within the community, is a recipe for Jewish disaster. Crossing economic, ethnic and religious boundaries including Judaism-Orthodoxy, Reform, Conservative, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrachi, interfaith balabustahs and homemakers, "abuse" is now part of the contemporary Jewish vocabulary, with victimizations being reported from Jewish spouses, elderly parents and children.
There is a finger to be pointed but not at the victims often shunned after making public allegations.
Two such people holding molesters and communities that harbor them accountable are The Awareness Center's Rabbi Yosef Blau and his colleague, Vicki Polin. Rabbi Blau is a member of the RCA, a graduate of Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Polin, establishing a network of Jewish practitioners experienced with sexual victimization issues and Judaism, is familiar with special needs of Jewish sexual abuse survivors. She advocated empathetic support for victims prior to starting her own Center.
Rabbi Blau stood at the lectern, front of the Capitol Hilton meeting room, up the street from the White House in Washington, DC. Co-hosting a session with Polin, at the Jewish Women's International Conference on Domestic Abuse, "Lost In The Shuffle: Jewish Survivors of Sexual Victimization," Rabbi Blau focused his audience on the challenge the Center faces educating Jewish community leaders and others, lacking training, to recognize signs of abusive relationships and to understand victims' needs of religious and physical healing. Blau and Polin addressed victims' spiritual struggle to maintain faith in traditional teachings, such as Sanhedrin's "one who teaches another's child torah, is regarded by the tradition as one who gave birth to the child," in light of their abuser being an outwardly religious individual.
Rabbi Blau's and Polin's eclectic audience was filled with people wanting to make a difference. Men, women, old, young, North American, Middle Eastern, were "called to action" at Jewish Women International's conference to pursue, within the framework of the Jewish Community, justice and righteousness from abuse. A representative from "Shalom Bayit," a Northern California domestic abuse shelter for women and children was present. "Shalom Bayit" advocates to victims they do not have to suffer alone, they are not to blame as often they are accused by congregants, family and community members. "Shalom Bayit," "Peace In The House," advocacy that no one deserves to be abused, recalls a hand drawn poster, probably long forgotten, victims need to reminded. A young boy is pictured. Under him the words, "God don't make no junk..."
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Review Board requested New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice examine Catholic clergical abuse against under 18 year olds. The report investigated 10,667 abuse claims lodged against 4, 392 priests in 52 years. Some clergy reported they were abused as children. 50% plus of their victims were children aged 11 to 14 years old. 81% of their victims were male. The surveyors were asked to profile alleged abusers characteristics. They studied diocese and church records of the accuser, the accused, and the lay leader. The surveyors concluded sexual abuse is under reported. And the surveyors requested corresponding data from Muslim, Buddhist, Protestant, Jewish and other denominations and movements.
Non-denominational statistics that bear heeding are; 95% of the abusers are men; one of every three to five women, one of every five to seven men have been sexually abused by their 18th birthday; 2.78 million men have been victim to attempted or completed rape; one out of every eight reported rape victims was male. By the time they are high schoolers, 28% of students, have experienced abuse. 48% of the abused are in grades 5 through 12. Women teachers sexually molest children too; Seattle teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, married mother of four, Florida teacher Debra LaFave, 23; Oklahoma basketball coach Elisa Nielson, 29; Tennessee physical-education teacher Pamela Turner, 27; and California teacher trainee Margaret De Barraicua, 30. Each of the four was charged with sexual assault of a male student aged between 12 and 16. A Jewish statistic- 20 to 30% of Jewish families in Israel and the United States suffer domestic violence
Victimization practitioners are encouraging women to come forward and get help. Often, victims are unaware they are being abused. They think the behaviour is 'normal' or 'acceptable,' a sign the abuser 'likes them,' rather than danger signals. Industry practitioners release information outlining abusive behaviours. Signs of abusive behaviour include "approval withheld as punishment, locked into or out of the house, held against ones will or pushed around, punched, shoved, slapped bit, kicked, burned, choked or hit, personal items destroyed, abandoned in strange places, ridiculed or insulted, abandoned in strange locations, harassed about fictitious affairs, publicly or privately humiliated, criticized, or shamed with names called, isolating victim from family and friends, makes them feel bad, demands to know whereabouts, does not want victim to share time with others, threatens to hurt or kill sell if victim leaves,"
Rabbi Blau said, the Jewish commandment against "lashon harah," gossiping, in the matter of suspected abuse, is waived, overridden by the teaching of Lev. 19:16, "Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor." Abusers must be reported. It is a "hilul hashem," a moral desecration, of God's name and of the Ten Commandments, for a Jewish individual not to report suspicions of abuse. Abuse is a matter the "law of the land," "dina demalkhuta dina," can adjudicate in secular courts and must pursue. Enforcement has raised its own concerns for responding to claims of abuse within Jewish communities. Officers have reported being charged with anti-semitism in the course of their doing their job, responding to a citizen's call for help.
As Rabbi Blau waited for his ride to the airport, I told him, a few blocks away in Lafayette Park, there stands a monument titled "Military Instruction." A sculpted older man is seated, a naked young man at his side. Then I pointed kitty corner to the hotel, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. September 4, 2004, I told him, a pregnant twelve year old was escorted by her mother past right-to-life advocates. Blocks away from the hotel, on Constitution Avenue, I described a display at the National Gallery of Art. Mythological statues. Mercury, in all his glory, stood above a crowd of NE DC junior high schoolers. Down the corridor, on a marble pedestal, stood Bauccus, with a pan, half-boy, half goat. The pan's eye is level with Bauccus' erection. I noticed that in the photo I took of the junior high schooler's walking by, giggling. In a media week, when ober-icon Michael Jackson was accused of feeding Jesus-Juice in a can to a kid alleging sexual abuse, it was no wonder, some kids grabbed their crotches emulating the one-glove wonder's Moon Walk as they passed by. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Rabbi Blau shook his head. In a world of mixed signals children are expected to sort better than adults can, distinctions between good touch bad touch, appropriate behaviour versus inappropriate, being told not to talk to strangers but answer the "nice man" talking to grandma since "convicted sex offender" isn't stamped on his forehead, get lost.
The night before, details of the confirmed murder of 9 year old Jessica Lunsford, by a man who lived across their street, were being released. I told the Rabbi, one interview from the Couey killing stands out as textbook to facilitating citizen's understanding why abusers remain at large until a murder trips them up. A restaurant owner in Jessica's town told reporters he employed Couey, until he fired him. The restaurant owner aware of Couey's colorful background, felt badly for "the loser." So, he hired him, firing the 30' old only after Couey wrote a love letter to a 14 year old co-worker. No one complained to authorities about the incident. Until, Jessica was kidnapped, raped and sexually abused over days, before being murdered. Her community failed her. Not just the community in which she died but the global community in which other children still live.
Heading towards the Metro, I leafed through the Jewish newspaper in my hands, filled with holiday activities for children, puppet making, noisemaker activities followed by megillah readings for kids. Growing up I heard about a rabbi, sent packing, for abusing bochers at a Yeshiva, north of our house. Eventually, news filtered north the rabbi had been accused of molesting bochers at the American yeshiva that sent him north. His resume listed many attributes Sexual offender and deviant were not amongst them. Nor did it contain those warning when he was sent packing, again.
I looked inside the information packet for conference attendees. Amongst letters from various Democratic Congressmen was Gary Ackerman's. He wrote "If we are serious about tikkun olam, repairing the world, we need to begin in the home, the place where our values are most strongly rooted," "one home at a time."
As I walked, I wondered if parents would ever take as much time to vett their children's caretakers- teachers, babysitters, friends parents, the kids friends themselves, families they marry into- as they take in selecting holiday outfits they wear. An ad caught my attention. A Rabbi offering Jews "may the Lord bless and protect you," if they prayed in the language of their forefathers. I thought about the young girl attacked by three classmates in the basement bathroom of her yeshiva. An older boy came to her rescue. Her parents refused to take action, after all, it had to be her fault. I stepped off the curb, asking myself who protects victims from those who prey in the language of their forefathers. Trust must be earned; granting of tikkun, repentance, sought by some abusers, remains in control of the abused..
BIO: Carrie Devorah is a DC based investigative photojournalist. Trained as a PI, mediator, crime analyst and profiler, she writes on themes related to faith, homeland security and terrorism. I dedicate this piece to the memory of Yechezkel Chezi Scotty Goldberg, www.goldbergmemorial.org. He will never be replaced.
Kaye quits rabbinic assn.; retains title
by Eric Fingerhut, Staff Writer
Washington Jewish Week - November 17, 2005
http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=4397&TM=46690.21
Rabbi David Kaye has resigned from Conservative Judaism's rabbinical association, but the title of "rabbi" cannot be taken away from him.
Such a designation is earned when one graduates from rabbinical school, according to leaders in the Conservative and Reconstructionist movement.
Kaye submitted his resignation to the Rabbinical Assembly a few days before the airing of the Nov. 4 Dateline NBC hidden camera investigation of sexual predators on the Internet in which he was ensnared.
A former rabbi at Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac, Kaye also resigned his position with the teen educational group Panim: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values due to the Dateline program.
Rabbi Joel Meyers, the R.A.'s executive vice president, said that giving up membership in the organization essentially means that Kaye is "no longer a member of the Conservative rabbinate" and "can't function as a Conservative rabbi."
The Awareness Center, an organization advocating for the rights of sexual abuse victims in the Jewish community, has been urging its supporters to ask that Kaye's s'micha, or rabbinic ordination, be revoked. But Meyers said that "we can't take his s'micha away" because he "earned his degrees," and "unless fraud was found in achieving the degree, he has the degree."
Kaye was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College two decades ago before joining the Conservative movement's rabbinical association after he was hired at the Conservative Har Shalom. The president of the RRC, Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, said revoking one's ordination "is not something we ever do, nor do I think it's doable."
"You can't take away the fact that he successfully fulfilled the requirements for graduation," said Ehrenkrantz.
He noted that rabbinical groups like the R.A. act as licensing-type organizations, and losing membership in such a group effectively tells the public that a rabbi has not conducted himself properly.
He compared the situation to a doctor who engages in misconduct Æ the physician does not lose the title doctor, but can lose his or her license.
Kaye, however, would still, for example, be able to officiate at a wedding if a couple desired.
The rabbi also has left his teaching position at B'nai Israel Congregation's Hebrew high school, according to the Rockville Conservative synagogue's Rabbi Jonathan Schnitzer.
Kaye had been teaching a Tuesday evening class for the post-confirmation class of 11th- and 12th-graders and had led the Shabbat teen minyan since the beginning of the school year. He resigned those posts three days before the Dateline program aired, Schnitzer said this week.
Schnitzer said that the teen sessions were "always in a group" and that the shul had not received any complaints about his conduct.
Criminal charges are still not expected against Kaye. A Montgomery County Police Department spokesperon said that it has not received any criminal complaints or been provided with other information that would trigger an investigation of the rabbi, although an inquiry could be opened in the future if such facts did arise.
The Fairfax County Police Department said once again this week that it still does not anticipate filing charges because of both jurisdictional issues and reservations about the methods of Perverted Justice, the group that partnered with Dateline in the investigation. The group's volunteers pose as children on the Internet in order to expose potential predators.
Fairfax County police have noted that even though the alleged predators were lured to a house in Virginia, the Perverted Justice volunteer chatters were based in Michigan and Kaye and many of the other alleged predators lived in Maryland. With the alleged crimes crossing state lines, it is unclear if the FBI could get involved in the case.
A spokesperson for the FBI's Baltimore field office could not say at this point whether it would be investigated.
Rabbi Challenges Right to Anonymity on
Internet
By Rebecca Spence
Forward - July 14, 2006
http://www.forward.com/articles/8103
The latest chapter in an ongoing saga pitting an Orthodox rabbi from Monsey, N.Y., against female former congregants who have accused him of sexual harassment is raising broad legal questions about the right of free speech in cyberspace.
Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, who was accused of sexually propositioning women who came to him seeking spiritual guidance, petitioned a California court May 24 to force Google — the Internet giant that hosts electronic message boards through its Blogspot division — to disclose the identities of four anonymous writers who post comments to Web journals, known as blogs. Tendler, the scion of a storied rabbinic lineage, has fiercely denied the allegations of sexual harassment since they first surfaced in 2004. He claims that the bloggers have posted "false, misleading, and defamatory materials" about him on their Web sites.
In response to the petition, Public Citizen, a national public interest group whose litigation group has played a lead role in defending free speech on the Internet, filed motions on July 6 to throw out Tendler's case and reimburse the defendants' attorney fees, saying that the request violates the bloggers' First Amendment rights to free speech.
The newest development in the controversy surrounding Tendler, who was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America in 2005 and was later sued for sexual harassment by one former congregant, is part of a growing body of court cases that are grappling with how to balance the rights of those who say they are being libeled with the rights of their anonymous critics, legal analysts said.
"Our interest is in the problem of balancing the right to speak anonymously on the Internet against the right of someone who has been harmed by unlawful speech to get redress," said Paul Levy, the Public Citizen attorney who filed the motion in response to Tendler's petition. Levy leads the group's Internet free speech project. "For ordinary people, the only effective way to reach the community at large is through the Internet, which provides a voice and an opportunity to speak," he said.
Tendler is seeking to learn the names of those who operate the blogs Jewishwhistleblower.com and rabbinicintegrity.blogspot.com, among others.
The issue of anonymous free speech on the Internet is particularly salient in the Orthodox Jewish community, where electronic message boards have often served as a safe space for airing allegations and discussing claims of sexual abuse by rabbis. Fearing both retribution by the accused clergy and ostracism from their communities, many Orthodox victims of sexual abuse have sought refuge in cyberspace. Jewish-themed blogs, which have proliferated in recent years, have also served as an effective means for victims to take action when allegations of sexual misconduct have gone unheeded by rabbinic authorities, some critics said.
In response to Tendler's petition, Rabbi Yosef Blau, a spiritual adviser at Yeshiva University, filed a three-page affidavit with the Superior Court in San Jose. Calif., arguing that it is important to maintain the anonymity of the bloggers. "The potential consequences of speaking out can be especially severe when the target of the criticism belongs to an influential family, as is true of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler," wrote Blau, who has himself been the subject of attacks on blogs and in the print media from critics who accused him of organizing efforts to oust Tendler.
Tendler is the son of Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a prominent Talmud instructor and bioethicist at Yeshiva Univeristy, and the grandson of the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, widely considered to be his era's preeminent decisor of biblical and rabbinic law.
In 2005, Blau was attacked in a series of articles published in two Orthodox newspapers, the Jewish Press and the Jewish Voice and Opinion, as well as on a now-defunct Web site that was created to discredit him. Blau said that he was never able to prove that Tendler's associates were behind the Web site and that he eventually gave up his efforts to expose them. "The supporters of Tendler have never revealed themselves, but no one is suing on the other side," he added.
Lawyers for Tendler did not return repeated calls from the Forward seeking comment.
While a strong precedent for cases involving free speech on the Internet has yet to be established, in previous cases that have come before state courts — most recently in a 2004 state Supreme Court ruling in Delaware — judges have placed the burden of proof on the plaintiff to prove defamation before they are willing to force an Internet host to reveal a blogger's anonymous identity.
"The First Amendment reflects an understanding that sometimes the most valuable speech is uncredited," said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University. Zittrain cited as a historic example the Federalist Papers, which were written anonymously by the authors of the United States Constitution. "And no one would call the framers cowards," he said.
Some advocates for sexual abuse victims contend that anonymous blogging is necessary not only to shield accusers from potential harassment, but also to help them through the process of healing.
"One of the things most healing to any victim of a serious crime is to talk about it," said Vicki Polin, founder of The Awareness Center Inc., a volunteer organization that maintains a Web site on sexual abuse in the Jewish community. "When people start blogging, they realize they're not alone," she said.
But some Jewish bloggers expressed disdain toward those who remain anonymous. Stephen I. Weiss, who operates the religion blog Canonist and founded one of the first Jewish blogs to host discussions on sexual harassment by rabbis, said that while anonymity may be legally justified, it can't be morally justified. Many blogs "claim to bring down abusive rabbis when they don't," Weiss said. Still, Weiss added, "legally, the potential ramifications for what Tendler is proposing are horrendous."
Meanwhile, an Israeli Knesset member, Yisrael Hason, was set this week to introduce a bill that would require Internet sites to only post comments from participants who identify themselves, according to Israeli news reports. That bill was sparked by similar cases in Israel of public officials who were anonymously criticized by Internet bloggers.
Defrocked rabbi's Jerusalem lecture cancelled after
threats
By Daphna Berman
Haaretz - July 5, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/735378.html
A lecture by an American rabbi accused of sexual improprieties by several of his New York congregants, scheduled to be held in Jerusalem on Thursday night, was cancelled, following threats of protests and a flood of complaints, activists said.
Mordechai Tendler, a scion of a prominent rabbinic family, was expelled unanimously last year by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) after the organization decided that he had "engaged in conduct inappropriate for an Orthodox rabbi." In March, he was also suspended by the board of Kehillat New Hempstead, the New York synagogue that he founded. Tendler, who is currently in Israel, was scheduled to speak Thursday in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof. A protest was scheduled to take place outside the event.
"This is definitely a victory," said Leah Marinelli, a former congregant from New York, Wednesday. Marinelli was one of the first community members to speak out against the rabbi and convinced some of his alleged victims to come forward publicly to the RCA.
"We put out a call for action on Tuesday morning and the next day it was cancelled and so I am pretty convinced that there is a connection," said Vicki Polin, founder of the U.S.-based Awareness Center, the Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse and Assault."We didn't want him to recreate in Israel what he had done in Monsey [in New York]."
Both, however, expressed concern that Tendler would proceed with the lecture in a smaller and non-publicized location with a core group of supporters.
Moshe Siegel, a former congregant who immigrated to Israel some 10 years ago, was coordinating the lecture and had publicized the event on various English-language list servers around the country. He was subsequently flooded with e-mails and phone calls, urging him to cancel the event. Wednesday afternoon, Siegel posted a message on the list serves, informing the public that the event was cancelled. He did not provide a reason and did not respond by press time to Haaretz requests for further clarification.
Other community leaders in the U.S. have welcomed the cancellation. Rabbi Mark Dratch, chair of the RCA's Task Force on Rabbinic Improprieties said that the move had proven that "there is no place a person can hide. We're one community and though we are distanced by an ocean, that doesn't mean that what happens in one place gets ignored by another." He said that members of Tendler's former community felt "that he compromised the rabbinate and should not be given the opportunity to teach Torah publicly," Dratch said.
At least nine women have come forward against Tendler with claims that he used his rabbinic authority to solicit sexual favors. According to allegations, women who approached him with marital problems and sought spiritual counseling were sexually harassed. Last year, a former congregant filed a civil lawsuit in Manhattan against Tendler in which she accused him of giving her "sex therapy" when she went to him for help. Their affair allegedly took place in his rabbinical study from 2001 to 2005.
Following the RCA ruling last year, Rabbi Benzion Wosner, head of the Shevet Levi rabbinical court in Monsey, New York, issued a ruling that Tendler "can no longer officiate at divorces, weddings ... One should never allow their wives or daughters to go to him at all including [for] counseling ... and all his rulings are null and void."
The allegations against the rabbi, who is married and is the father of eight children, surfaced three years ago. Tendler's grandfather is the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the leading religious arbiters of the twentieth century.
Tendler's attorney, Glen Feinberg, did not have information about the reasons for the cancellation. "I represent Rabbi Tendler in the lawsuit brought against him. My representation does not extend to other matters. Thus, the rabbi does not discuss his travel or lecture plans with me and I have no information about this." He added, however, that "Rabbi Tendler completely denies the allegations of sexual misconduct and expects to be vindicated through the judicial process."
Kaye sentenced for sex crime charges
by Eric Fingerhut
