Abuse:Dov Hikind's strategic retreat

Foward reports:

Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, a leading voice in the fight to end child sexual abuse in Orthodox communities, is backing down from some of his previous claims and backing away from one of his most confrontational stands against an alleged pedophile.

In an interview with the Forward, Hikind dramatically scaled down a previously reported estimate of the number of abuse cases he knew about. He also said he could not keep a pledge to force a prominent yeshiva to remove an alleged pedophile from its staff.

Hikind said that he adjusted his tactics in order to be most effective. “Some people want me to yell and scream; they want me to burn the town down. I know how to do that, but I would lose the war immediately,” Hikind said in his office in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park.

After Hikind first publicized the problem of child sexual abuse in religious communities on his weekly radio show, it was widely reported that he heard from 1,000 victims of past and current abuse. That figure was attributed

But the real figure is about 100, Hikind told the Forward. He said the often repeated 1,000 number may have come from his speculation about the possible number of cases, given what he has heard from therapists who treat sexual abuse victims.

“I think what we were saying to everybody was, my God, the numbers must be astronomical,” Hikind said. “We never said a thousand. It keeps on getting repeated; anybody who talks to me, I actually tell them what the facts are.”

In the same interview, Hikind retreated from his previous position with regard to one of the Orthodox community’s most prominent alleged abusers — Rabbi Avrohom Reichman, formerly principal of, and currently a teacher at, the United Talmudical Academy, located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Reichman, the UTA and the Satmar Bungalow Colony summer camp are all named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by Joel Engelman, 23, who says that he was sexually abused by Reichman when he was 8 years old and that the school covered up the abuse.

Since Engelman went public with his allegations, both his family and Hikind have heard from others who say they were also victimized by Reichman. Last summer, following those revelations, Hikind vowed publicly that Reichman would not return to his teaching job in the fall of 2008.

But the accused rabbi is still teaching, and Hikind has not publicly pressed the issue further. The assemblyman told the Forward that his confrontation with Satmar leaders has been “a rather huge learning experience for me.”[...]

Abuse & the sounds of silence - Yated editorial

I just showed the following editorial from the Yated to Rav Sternbuch. His response was,

"Why isn't there any mention about stopping the perpetrators?" Why isn't there a condemnation of those who committed the crimes against these children? Why are they afraid to condemn the perpetrators?"

This editorial is a welcome step forward but it 1) acknowledges that American gedolim have been aware that there has been a significant problems for years - without doing anything about it. 2) he claims that our American religious leaders were ignorant about how to handle the problem - so why didn't they ask the police, why didn't they ask psychologists and social workers? 3) why has there been an active repression of talk about these issues and pressure on the families not to come forth? 5) why is his focus on belatedly helping the victims handle their suffering without acknowledging that a significant cause of the problem are family, friends and rabbis who should should have been protecting the children instead of abusing them? 6) what is this talk about the abuse being a gezeirah? Does he think that G-d's name is being sanctified by the abuse of these unfortunate children?! That is obscene!


VIN reports an editorial of the Yated editor Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

There is an issue that has been on my mind for several years. It is an extremely sensitive topic and I tried writing about it many times but couldn’t find the right words with which to express what I wanted to say in a way that would be beneficial and adhere to standards of derech eretz and fairness.

I have discussed my predicament with many gedolim and they all encouraged me to write about it here in the Yated and said that Hashem would help me find the proper voice.

The sad fact is that children in our community are being abused by perpetrators who prey upon their innocence and our silence. We don’t have a count of how many people are hurt, but it is much larger than we realized, even a short time ago. There is no real debate about the catastrophic effects of abuse.

The innocence and purity of children is destroyed for life. The victims remain hurt, shamed and scarred. They suffer in silence, afraid to reveal their secret to anyone. They are hounded by feelings of guilt and embarrassment and live lives of tortured pain. The overwhelming majority of survivors suffer in silence, unless they are lucky enough to endure agonizing, arduous, expensive therapy. However, even a lifetime of therapy doesn’t ensure that the victim can ever be fully healthy again. Not every young victim’s psyche can be healed. Victims are much more likely to go off the derech, become addicted to drugs and lead a life of abusing themselves and others.

Let us be clear: For too long, we weren’t tuned in to these innocent victims’ stories and their pain. For too long, we weren’t sufficiently aware that this problem existed and thus were able to ignore the quiet pleas, the sad eyes, the pained lives, and the personalities withdrawn. We didn’t recognize the warning signs and thus largely ignored the phenomenon. Equally clear, this inattention was not a function of some high level conspiracy to harm people or cover up for criminals or abet nefarious activities. It was simply a function of a lack of education about a complex and highly sophisticated problem. It was a result of our leadership simply being unaware of the depths that such sordid people could sink to, and the extreme skill perpetrators exhibit in covering their tracks. And yes, it was undeniably a gezeirah, which, as so often is the case, claims innocent holy souls - bikroyvai Ekodeish.[...]

Sexual temptation - Knowledge of Chazal and habituation

This gemora (Sukkah 52a) and the explanation of the Ben Ish Chai raises a number of important points The gemora describes Abaye following a couple who he assumes will sin. But they didn't and they didn't even struggle with temptation. Abaye was very upset since he had been sure they would sin. He assumed that he would have given in to a situation that they easily handled - that bothered him. Finally he was comforted by an old man telling him that he had a greater yetzer harah then they did. The Ben Ish Chai explains that Abaye was simply naive about these matters. This can be understood 1) that Abaye simply did not know how human beings reacted to interaction with the opposite sex and that he would have withstood it also. 2) Greater people have greater temptation and thus Abaye hadn't been aware that ordinary people don't have the same lust as great people. 3) Habituation makes sex less of a temptation. Therefore a person who lives a holy live and doesn't intereact with the opposite sex on a regular basis. has greater lust. Consequently this suggests that more normal interaction with the opposite sex is greater protection than stringent separation.

Sukkah(52a):Abaye explained that the yetzer harah is stronger against sages than anyone else. For example when Abaye heard a certain man say to a woman, “Let us arise and go on our way.” Abaye said that he would follow them in order to keep them from sin and so he followed after them for three pasarangs across a meadow. However they simply parted from each other and he heard them say, “The way is long and the company is pleasant.” Abaye said, “If I were in that situation I could not have withstood temptation.” He went and leaned against a doorpost in deep anguish. An old man came to him and taught him: To the degree that a person is greater than others, to that degree his yetzer (evil inclination) is greater than theirs.

Ben Yohoyada(Sukka 52a): An old man taught him that whoever is greater than others - his yetzer his greater. There is an obvious question. How was Abaye comforted by these words? If in fact his yetzer harah was greater than the young couple - who didn’t give into temptation – he also had greater power than they to break and conquer it. Why did Abaye assume that he would not have been able to resist temptation as they did? In fact it was so insignificant to them that they didn’t even notice that they had withstood temptation. It seems to me that his assumption that he wouldn’t have withstood the temptation is simply because he never had been exposed to such a situation. He had never even thought about it before. Therefore he wasn’t speaking from experience but just assumed that he would not have withstood temptation. However this situation happened to them regularly and therefore it was not surprising to them.

Rav Sternbuch - Living with Bitachon

Sampling error regarding views of Orthodox Jews

YNet reports:

The recent headlines resulting from the JDC – ICCD’s study that most European Jewish leaders support greater tolerance for conversion raised both a frown and bewilderment from those European leaders directly involved in conversion, particularly its rabbis and more specifically its Orthodox rabbinate. A frown because it reminds them of their constant battle with lay leaders over standards for conversion and bewilderment because this survey is like asking taxi drivers about world economic policy – they’ve got a lot to say but understand little about the intricacies of the subject matter.

The survey reports a remarkable tolerance towards intermarriage among the respondents. As much as 85% thought that it was not a good idea to strongly oppose intermarriage and bar those who intermarry and their spouses from communal membership.

According to the JDC’s own statistics 30% of those polled were defined as Orthodox, which means that 50% of the Orthodox polled were not strongly opposed to intermarriage. A major problem with this survey is that it allows respondents to provide their own self-definitions.

Anyone familiar with the European Jewish communal scene knows the following: There are many Jews who belong to Orthodox synagogues purely for burial or familial purposes. When asked to identify themselves, these people will identify themselves as ‘Orthodox’ because they belong to an Orthodox synagogue or burial society. Many do not keep Shabbat, Kashrut, and may even themselves be married to a non-Jew. It is hardly surprising that 46% of these respondents agree, that if you have one Jewish parent (even if it is the father and therefore the rest of the family are not halachically Jewish) you should be allowed to be a member of the community. This means that many who participated in the survey are Orthodox in name only.

Most significantly, there is a glaring omission of the one group of leaders who more than anyone are involved in conversion and matters of Jewish status - the rabbis of Europe. [...]

Birthright graduates - limited Jewish identity

Forward reports:

Nearly 160,000 young Jews from North America have taken part in Taglit-Birthright Israel, a 10-day free Israel trip aimed at revving up their Jewish identities.

Of those no longer in college, only half have attended any Jewish event since their return.

That’s one of the findings of “Tourists, Travelers and Citizens,” a new report by the Cohen Center of Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. The report is based on interviews and online surveys of 1,534 Birthright alumni in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto, the four largest Jewish communities in North America.

“It means we have a lot of work to do,” says Daniel Brenner, executive director of Birthright Israel NEXT, a national organization that tries to steer alumni toward greater Jewish involvement in their home communities.

The Birthright program was instituted in 2000 by mega-philanthropists concerned about what they perceived as the younger generation’s lack of Jewish involvement. Numerous formal and informal evaluations show participants’ connection to Israel and the Jewish community are enhanced by their trip, but that does not translate into ongoing Jewish involvement, according to the new report

“Years after their trip, Taglit alumni continue to look more like ‘tourists’ than ‘citizens’ in the Jewish community world,” the report’s authors write. “Although they value their Jewish identities, most have only limited participation in Jewish communal life.”

The report shows that 44 percent of Birthright alumni who are no longer in college have not attended any Jewish program since their return from Israel. A further 39 percent have attended just one or two programs. Only 4 percent have taken part in more than four programs.[...]

Guma Aguiar & his Chabad rebbe's bas mitzva

Chabad Lubavitch reports

How do parents of a severely challenged 12 year old girl celebrate their daughter’s bat mitzvah?

The question was poignantly relevant for Rabbi Moshe Meir and Pnina Lipszyc, Chabad representatives to Ft. Lauderdale, who have cultivated a lively Jewish community over nearly two decades while raising their special needs children under extraordinary circumstances. [...]

Guma Aguiar came from Israel with his wife and children to celebrate. “The first time I came to this Chabad center six years ago,” the founder of Leor Energy told the guests, “I had nothing. I knew nothing about Judaism, and didn’t understand a thing of what was going on during services.”

Aguiar, who went on to become a successful entrepreneur, was born to Jewish parents but raised as an evangelical Christian. “I came here because I wanted to try something authentic,” he said, recalling how he walked into the Chabad center one Friday night in search of something missing in his life. He found it in Rabbi Lipszyc’s unconditional acceptance. Aguiar has since returned to his Jewish roots, living in Jerusalem much of the year.

Like Aguiar, many at the Torah dedication/ bat-mitzvah were there having discovered the joy of belonging through Rabbi Lipszyc. Aguiar says that observing the rabbi’s unfaltering devotion to his daughter has been a tremendous inspiration. “Goldi’s come a very long way since we got to know her six years ago. Moshe Meir has nurtured her with incredible love and patience.”

From the way Rabbi Lipszyc greets an endless stream of visitors to the Chabad center and the Kabbalah Café in Ft. Lauderdale, one would never guess that the 45 year old father of five has twice battled cancer and continues to struggle with his own health while working creatively to build and grow Jewish life in the area.[...]