Rabbi Rapoport's clarification regarding the Levy abuse case

Rabbi Rapoport just issued a clarification of his widely misunderstood statement regarding the Levy case

My statement about the ‘arbitrariness’ of the age of consent (News, July 26) has been terribly misrepresented. In no way did I intend to minimise the severity of a sexual relationship with someone underage or to defend the perpetrator. On the contrary, I emphasised that even if sexual contact began when Goldsobel was over the legal age of consent, Levy still transgressed Jewish law, it was an ethical misdemeanour and may well have been exploitative. 

Confidential propriety and moral integrity prevent me from providing an adequate explanation for my involvement in this case. However, lest my position be misconstrued as acquiescence to the widespread injustice to abuse victims, I state unequivocally: Sexual predators are a threat to society and must be incarcerated. Those with reasonable suspicion of abuse must inform legal authorities. I condemn those who belittle the plight of victims or ostracise them and show support for their abusers. I applaud and actively assist institutions that support victims.

Rabbi Chaim Rapoport

Abuse in Australlia - Program about the shunning of the Waks family

ABC Radio Australia     ABC Podcast

The Waks family with their 17 children lived across from the Yeshiva, or religious school, in Melbourne's tight-knit Hasidic Jewish community.

When the oldest boy, Manny, was sexually molested by two teachers, the impact on his faith, his family and the community was devastating.

While Manny has lost his faith but not his love of Judaism, his father Zephaniah has lost virtually all his friends in the community as a result of going public.

To bring justice for those who have suffered in silence Manny established Tzedek, a non profit advocacy organisation for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse.

Rabbis who will not acknowledge sexual abuse because of lashon harah

Some correspondence I recently received clearly shows that there are rabbis - perhaps the  majority - who will profess that while they are very concerned about the welfare of children - but it is less important than being makpid on lashon harah.

Summary of correspondence: His Rav claims that allegations read or heard were lashon harah unless charges were first upheld in beis din based on testimony of 2 kosher witnesses. Questioned whether the average person is allowed to read such allegations on a blog such as mine since they don't need to know and thus the lashon harah serves no purpose.

This is the view clearly expressed by  Rav Menashe Klein   Put another way, these rabbis refuse to accept even the existence of abuse unless it can be reported in ways that don't violate the prohibition of lashon harah.

It is critical to realize that the same verse that prohibits lashon harah - also says that one should not stand by when someone is being hurt physically, psychologically or financially. In fact the commentaries - including that of Rav Elchonon Wasserman understand that there is no prohibition of lashon harah in a situation where a person can be saved from harm by speaking about it.

Vayikra (19:16) You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people; nor shall you stand against the blood of your neighbor; I am the Lord.

Relevant previous posts:
Rabbi Zwiebel of the Aguda saying lashon harah is a high price to pay to save kids from abuse
Rav Menashe Klein rejects the view of gedolei hador regarding child abuse - requires 2 witnesses and beis din
 ====================In contrast ===================
Rav Moshe Sternbuch saying that prohibition of lashon harah is not justification for not listening to allegations - he cites Rav Chaim Ozer and the Gerrer Rebbe.

Pischei Teshuva - saying not saying lashon harah to save people is worse than lashon harah

Rav Elchonon Wasserman - lashon harah prohibited only if intent to harm others

Rema - 2 kosher witnesses not needed 

Judge orders ex-Penn State executives to trial in abuse coverup

Reuters   Harrisburg District Judge William Wenner, after a two-day preliminary hearing, ordered a criminal trial to be held for the university's former president, Graham Spanier, 65, its former athletic director, Tim Curley, 59, and its former senior vice president Gary Schultz, 63.

Sandusky, 69, a former assistant football coach, was convicted in June 2012 of 45 counts of sexual abuse involving 10 boys. He is serving a sentence of 30 to 60 years in a state prison

A witness central to the prosecution's case, former assistant football coach Mike McQueary, testified on Monday about seeing Sandusky abuse a child in the school's locker room showers in 2001. He testified that the morning following the assault, he told Penn State football coach Joe Paterno what he saw and also told Curley and Schultz. No one told police.

Spanier, Curley, and Schultz are accused of a "conspiracy of silence" for failing to report the shower incident to authorities, which permitted Sandusky to continue preying on boys. He met most of his victims through a charity he founded for at-risk youth. [...]

D.A. Hynes conduct raises Questions of Professional Conduct

NY Times   In search of love and votes, Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, cannot seem to stop tripping over himself. 

Last week, he went on a television and radio show for the Orthodox Jewish community and denounced Sam Kellner. Bearded and intense, a bubbling fountain of words, Mr. Kellner is one of the rare few in the Hasidic community who spoke publicly about the plague of child sexual abuse. He helped the district attorney build cases against prominent Hasidic leaders, including a man accused of molesting Mr. Kellner’s own 16-year-old son. 

Or at least Mr. Kellner spoke until Brooklyn prosecutors turned around two years ago and charged him with trying to extort his son’s accused abuser, the Satmar cantor Baruch Lebovits.

The weakness of the case against Mr. Kellner is difficult to overstate. On Monday in State Supreme Court, Mr. Hynes’s prosecutors pleaded for more time to reinvestigate their rapidly disintegrating case. 

None of which appeared to have given pause to Mr. Hynes. “I believe there was a substantial effort by Mr. Kellner to gain money by making up stories,” he told the host of the program, Zev Brenner, last week. “I think we have a substantial case.” 

It appears Mr. Hynes, who often emphasizes the management experience he has accumulated over many decades, has violated the state’s rules of professional conduct, which prohibit prosecutors from offering “any opinion as to the guilt or innocence of a suspect” in a criminal matter.[...]

Mondrowitz beaten up in Jerusalem by vigilante

Algemeiner   Avrohom Mondrowitz, a notorious fake rabbi and child psychologist who fled US arrest warrants for child molestation in 1984, was attacked and beaten by an unknown vigilante assailant last week in Jerusalem, according to cellphone video footage of the incident released exclusively to The Algemeiner.

“Isaac,” a 22-year old American studying in Jerusalem who recorded the scene, asked that his full name not be used and that his voice be altered in the footage.

The cameraman said he did not know the identity of the assailant nor was he, personally, someone who typically resorted to violence, but the frustrating circumstances surrounding Mondrowitz’s continued freedom from hundreds of accusers made this an occasion where “vigilante justice could be justified.”

Isaac, originally from the New York area, said that he was neither a victim of child abuse nor an activist, but knew many people who had suffered abuse and felt “someone has to do something,” and that he had to “speak up.”

 

Rav Kook's dilemma: Hesped for Hertzl

Shaalvim   On the twentieth of Tammuz, 5664 (July 3,1904), Dr. Theodor Herzl (Benjamin Ze’ev) Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, died at the tragically young age of forty-four. Rav Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the newly installed rabbi of the port city of Jaffa, was asked to participate in a memorial service to honor the departed leader. Rav Kook was placed in a difficult situation, for which there was no totally satisfactory solution. On the one hand, the Halakha is quite specific when it comes to those who have deviated from the norms of Torah:

Whoever secedes from the way of the community, namely persons who throw off the yoke of commandments from upon their neck, and do not participate with the Jewish People in their observances, in honoring the festivals, and sitting in the synagogue and study house, but rather are free to themselves as the other nations, and so too the apostates and informers — for none of these persons does one mourn. Rather, their brothers and other relatives wear white (festive garments) and eat and drink, and make merry (Shulhan ‘Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 345:5).

However one might lionize Herzl, there was no getting away from the fact that his lifestyle was that of an assimilated Jew far from observance of traditional Judaism. If one were to adhere literally to the passage in Shulhan Arukh, the customary hesped or eulogy for the deceased would be out of the question.

On the other hand, Rav Kook knew his flock. If in Jaffa itself Rav Kook might find a few individuals capable of relating to the halakhic objection to memorializing a declaredly secular Jew, in Rehovot and the other outlying settler communities, Herzl, with his patriarchal beard and searing eyes, was regarded as nothing less than a modern-day “prophet.” And Rav Kook had been engaged not only as rabbi of Jaffa, but of the recently established moshavot (colonies) as well. [...]

Rav Moshe Feinstein's grave damaged by Belz chassidim

bhol update July 31, 2013


bhol Belzer chassidim -who went to Har Menuchos for the previous rebbe's yahrzeit - caused serious damage to Rav Moshe Feinstein's tombstone. This was the result of the pushing of the chassidim to see their rebbe.

Lakewood: Child abuse must be handled by a beis din which doesn't exist!?

It has been a number of weeks since the Kolko confession and conviction. What lessons have been learned? Of course the most important question is what lesson has Lakewood learned?

On the face of it, it seems that Lakewood made a major mistake in how they handled the Kolko case. Kolko himself has confessed to being a molester to the secular court. He has allegedly also confessed before a number of rabbis who were scheduled to testify to this fact at the trial. Apparently then we have certified by both halacha and secular law that Kolko is in fact a child molester.

However if this is truth is obvious – then why has the Lakewood establishment been silent? Why haven't they at least acknowledged that they made a mistake and apologized to the family that they drove out of Lakewood for the alleged crime of mesira? Isn't it obvious to them that there was no mesira because the father's concern was to protect other children from an actual child molester?

The answer that I am hearing from Lakewood is a resounding, "No!" There are many who still claim that the reporting of Kolko constituted mesira – in particular Rabbi Yisroel Belsky. Rabbi Belsky in fact claimed in a letter that circulated Lakewood before trial that his investigation confirmed Kolko's innocence and that the father – Rabbi "S" was the abuser. The consensus of the reports I have gotten after the trial is that he hasn't changed his mind. This view is shared by many other rabbis in Lakewood. It is true that there are some who have changed their minds – but this is only in private. No one is acknowledging publicly that he erred.

It seems that there are at least 3 factions in Lakewood. 1) Kolko is innocent or at least never was a threat to any children. Since he is not a threat he is not a rodef and therefore there was no justification for calling the police. This seems to be the majority. 2) The other view is that Kolko is a child molester and even without a beis din or even a rav – it is clear that the police should have been called. No one of significance has publicly stated this view. 3) Kolko is in fact a child molester and major rabbis paskened that the police should be informed. However this group – in particular the rabbis – not only refuse to publically state that they paskened this way – but they allegedly lie when they are asked.  They are afraid of telling the truth. Publicly this view doesn't exist.

Furthermore the population in Lakewood has 3 different approaches to understanding the conditions for calling the police.

1) A beis din of 3 rabbis is required to hear the claims and testimony of kosher witnesses is required. The purpose of the beis din is to determine halachic guilt or innocence. This approach asserts that without an explicit psak from a beis din – it is prohibited to go to the police. Even if guilt is determined – but if the beis din says that the matter can be handled internally – it is prohibited to call the police. This is the view explicitly stated by Rav Menashe Klein.

2) No beis din is needed since they have neither the power or competence to investigate the matter. However a rav needs to be consulted as to whether there is raglayim ledaver – credible evidence. The rav serves as the gatekeeper – but he is not poskening guilt or innocence. This is the view of the Aguda.

3) There is no reason to consult either a beis din or a rav. It is enough that that there is credible evidence that abuse has occurred. Since we are dealing with rodef – self‑protection – no rabbinical authority is needed. Only normal human judgment and knowledge is required to make the decision of whether to call the police. This is the view of the RCA and Rav Belsky's letter posted to the RCA website.

Unfortunately whether one needs to go to a beis din or not is at this point a moot point in Lakewood. That is because a person with an abuse allegation, no longer has a beis din in Lakewood dealing with these cases. In addition apparently no rav will posken these issues and publicly stand by his views. Anyone who goes to the police after receiving a psak will be labeled a moser. Thus the problem for Lakewood is – there is no longer any acceptable rabbinic mechanism for dealing with these cases. This was also the problem for the Aguda when they announced a few years ago that a rav (not even a beis din) had to be consulted for raglayim ledavar – and then a year later they acknowledged that they had no rabbonim who were willing to be publicly designated to deal with child molesting!

In Lakewood this is allegedly the result of a dispute been Rav Malkiel Kotler and Rav Mattisyahu Solomon. Rav Kotler is allegedly opposed to having a beis din for these matters and Rav Solomon is allegedly for the beis din. I was told by a number of sources that the beis din of Rav Solomon was dissolved after it ordered on alleged perpetrator to quit teaching and he threatened the beis din with a $10, 000, 000 lawsuit. The final nail in the coffin of the beis din was that Rav Kotler publicly sided with the accused. Thus Lakewood has a "catch 22" situation. Everyone acknowledges that child abuse is harmful and therefore halachicly it must be stopped. But there is no longer a mechanism in Lakewood for dealing with the problem so therefore the problem can't be dealt with! The only thing that can be dealt is condemning those people who go to the police without the permission they can't get.

This conflicting confusion in dealing with child abuse – is not limited to Lakewood. It is also clearly present in Rav Belsky. On the one hand he strongly condemned Rabbi "S" as a moser and a molester – and yet publicly published a statement on the RCA website saying that someone with credible evidence should go to the police (without mentioning either a beis din or a rav). In contradiction he is also quoted as saying that "in Lakewood we don't go to the police." However to show that he was serious about calling the police he said in the RCA statement that in one case in Brooklyn he had actually advised going to the police. So Rav Belsky does favor going to the police in certain circumstances - however most cases of molesting apparently don't meet his standards.

In sum, in Lakewood "one does not go to the police" and even though there are major rabbonim who will permit it in certain cases of abuse – they will never acknowledge that they permitted it. Thus no one will go to the  police because they definitely will be destroyed as a moser. In Lakewood abuse is denied or covered up (in the immortal words of Rav Mattisyahu Solomon at an Aguda Conference). Sometimes molesters are asked to go to therapy - without any way of making sure they comply. Sometimes molesters are sent to Israel or other communities. There was even a case of the Lakewood establishment in which the rabbis naively tried curing pedophilia by have the pedophile marry an innocent orphan who didn't realize how she was being betrayed by the rabbis that she had been taught to blindly respect. In addition I have heard allegations that even when Rav Solomon's beis din was functioning and telling molesters to pay for therapy for their victim – that some of these molesters went on to molest other children - because they were allowed to keep teaching. Of course after molesting again, they again went to Rabbi Solomon's beis din – but the police were never called.

Thank You Again Yair Lapid for Helping Orthodox Judaism in Israel by RaP

   Thank You Again Yair Lapid by RaP

When sex offenders are targeted for killing

NY Times  When Charles Parker registered as a sex offender in the small upstate town of Jonesville, S.C., he became a prospect on another man’s kill list, the authorities say. [...]

Sheriff’s officials believe that the double murder in Jonesville, a one-square-mile town of about 900 residents, was not the byproduct of a botched drug deal or a home invasion. Rather, they suspect that Mr. Parker’s death was intended as the opening phase of a man’s quest to purge sex offenders from Union County.

“He went through our sex offender registry,” said Sheriff David H. Taylor, “and individually picked out targets.”[...]

[...] But the case in South Carolina is otherwise odd, he said. 

“It’s very unusual that someone would set out to kill large numbers of sex offenders.” 

Mr. Moody is not the first person accused of targeting sex offenders. As recently as last month, a California jury convicted a 36-year-old man of killing a neighbor who was a sex offender, and a Washington State man was sentenced in 2012 to life in prison for a pair of similar killings.

Watching the Jewish Community Watch and Its ‘Wall of Shame’

Tablet Magazine   Now 24, Seewald claims to have a database containing over 225 suspected sex offenders and a confidential eight-member advisory “board” made up of mental-health professionals, legal experts, and rabbis who, according to Seewald, refuse to acknowledge their roles publicly for fear of backlash. JCW’s Wall of Shame features 36 accused abusers, 21 of them arrested, according to the site, each added when the “board” has determined there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. Like other Jewish blogs dedicated to sex-abuse awareness, such as Mark Appell’s Voice of Justice or Vicky Pollin’s The Awareness Center, JCW aggregates related news and offers referrals for legal advice or counseling services, but Seewald takes the job a step further. When a victim who confides in Seewald is unwilling—or unable due to the statute of limitations—to press charges, Seewald conducts his own investigation, selectively exposing alleged abusers on his “Wall of Shame.” [...]

According to Chaim Levin, 24, a Crown Heights blogger and activist who won $3.5 millionjudgment against his cousin on June 12, claiming years of childhood sex abuse, gaining Seewald as an ally was a relief. “The day I got a call from Seewald asking me about my story was the first time I believed that our community was actually making some progress in combating abuse,” said Levin. “I had been talking about what happened to me to anyone who would listen since I was 14, but everyone told me to keep it to myself and move on.”

Seewald’s confrontational style is evident in his latest project, Project E.M.E.S., an acronym for Educating Mosdos (institutions) on Eradicating Sexual abuse, launched this month, which aims to prevent sex abuse in religious summer camps. The project’s accompanyingvideo, titled “A Friendly Message to Camp Counselors,” warns them: “I don’t care who you are, what family you come from. If you touch a child, we will find out about it.”

But is Seewald—whose apparent irreverence for the hierarchies of Jewish institutions sets him apart from other crusaders in the field—helping or doing more harm than good? Seewald said he hopes the blog’s “Wall of Shame” will warn parents and instill fear in local predators, preventing the victimization of more children. “The only thing molesters are afraid of is being exposed and caught. They are more afraid of the Wall of Shame, than going to jail,” he told me. But the Wall of Shame has also proved to be deeply problematic; used irresponsibly, it can easily undermine the organization’s objectives and destroy an innocent person’s life. According to Ben Hirsch, co-founder of Survivors for Justice, an organization that advocates and educates on issues of child safety, Seewald is on a dangerous track. “Setting up a separate registry [from the law enforcement agencies] can be perceived as condoning a separate justice system,” he told me, “Which, in a way, perpetuates the message of the rabbis that we can deal with this issue in-house. The message must instead be that the only way to deal with child sex abuse is to report it directly to the police, without any prior consultation with a rabbi or other communal figure.”[...]

U.S. Prison Populations Decline, Reflecting New Approach to Crime

NYTimes   The prison population in the United States dropped in 2012 for the third consecutive year, according to federal statistics released on Thursday, in what criminal justice experts said was the biggest decline in the nation’s recent history, signaling a shift away from an almost four-decade policy of mass imprisonment. [...]

“This is the beginning of the end of mass incarceration,” said Natasha Frost, associate dean of Northeastern University’s school of criminology and criminal justice.[...]

Imprisonment rates in the United States have been on an upward march since the early 1970s. From 1978, when there were 307,276 inmates in state and federal prisons, the population increased annually, reaching a peak of 1,615,487 inmates in 2009.

But in recent years, tightened state budgets, plummeting crime rates, changes in sentencing laws and shifts in public opinion have combined to reverse the trend. Experts on prison policy said that the continuing decline appears to be more than a random fluctuation.[...]

But changing public attitudes are also a major driver behind the declining prison numbers. Dropping crime rates over the last 20 years have reduced public fears and diminished the interest of politicians in running tough-on-crime campaigns. And public polls consistently show that Americans are now more interested in spending money on education and health care than on building more prisons. [...]

Marc Levin, senior policy adviser for Right on Crime, described the change in conservatives’ position on parole violators: It used to be “Trail ’em, nail ’em and jail ’em,” he said, “but there’s been a move to say, ‘Yes, there’s a surveillance function, but we also want them to succeed.’ ” [...]

Joan Petersilia, a law professor at Stanford and a co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, said in an interview last year that she thought Americans had “gotten the message that locking up a lot of people doesn’t necessarily bring public safety.” California’s example, she said, has also spurred other states to consider downsizing for fear of facing similar litigation. [...]

David Kramer case: When is an apology not an apology?

Tzedek   When is an apology not an apology? When Yeshivah Centre seeks to separate itself from an apology issued by Yeshivah – Beth Rivkah Colleges Principal Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler.

Just two days ago, following the sentencing of former employee and confessed and convicted paedophile David Kramer, Yeshivah College Principal Rabbi Smukler put out a statement apologising for “any historical wrongs”, saying “we empathise with the victims and their families” and “we continue to offer support… to anyone who feels this will be of benefit to them”. (http://www.tzedek.org.au/tzedek-responds-to-sentencing-of-paedophile-david-kramer/#comment-25)

Tzedek welcomed the letter as an important first step by Yeshivah in terms of acknowledging its past wrongdoing but noted the real test will be the actions taken by the institution and its leaders from this day forward. (http://www.tzedek.org.au/media/media-releases/tzedek-responds-to-yeshivah-apology-letter/)

Sadly, it seems that the Yeshivah Centre’s actions have once again failed to live up to its rhetoric.

[...]

Rabbi Smukler’s response seems to suggest that the statement he released on Wednesday must have been only on behalf of Yeshivah College, NOT the entire Yeshivah Centre. Obviously the Yeshivah Centre is yet to issue its own public statement and unequivocal apology. The community and the general public must understand this distinction. [...]