Tuesday, January 11, 2022

The Awareness Center - not all allegations are true

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awareness_Center

The Awareness Center drew sharp criticism for publishing and publicizing rumors, accusations and allegations without verification. The Center routinely relied on anonymous blogs and other sources of dubious credibility to profile alleged sexual predators. Some who were listed by name were never sued or charged with any offense, or even accused by a verifiable source.[3][4][5][6][7]

Rabbi Mark Dratch, chair of the Rabbinical Council of America's Task Force on Rabbinic Improprieties and founder of the organization JSafe, which addresses domestic violence and child abuse in the Jewish community, withdrew his support from the Center because its use of unreliable sources was victimizing the falsely accused. "I wasn't satisfied with the threshold of verification. There are people who've been victimized and others who've been subject to false reports also being victimized."[3]

Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the Orthodox Agudath Israel of America group, also criticized the Center for using material from anonymous blogs. "The blogorai, as I call it, is the new way of making irresponsible accusations," he said. "Using a blog is a very easy and effective way of casting aspersions on people." Despite his words of general support for the Center, Rabbi Yosef Blau agreed, saying "since they are anonymous, they can say almost anything."[3]

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union and a trained psychologist, said that while the Awareness Center and the blogs "have served the purpose of keeping this in the public spotlight and keeping the pressure on established institutions to police their constituencies... I read everything with a grain of salt."[3]

Jeff Bell, writing in the July 2008 issue of Catalyst magazine, went further, accusing the center's director of misusing the organization as a tool for defamation:

She concluded, "I am sick and tired of the games being played by those in the Jewish Orthodox world who are attempting to discredit myself and The Awareness Center. Their hope is to continue to silence those who deserve to have their voices heard. It's important for us all to become educated consumers, and for the truth to be made public so we can learn, heal, and grow."

4 comments :

  1. this is Walder's defence- pay attention to the dishonesty:






    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/317351




    "Responding to statements by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu,


    chief rabbi of Tzfat, that people should remove his books from their


    homes, Walder said, “I was stunned to hear what Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu


    said, given that he did not take that very simple step of turning to me


    personally to hear my account. He should have known that he was being


    misled. When he spoke with me, I asked him how he could have ruled on


    this issue without hearing my side, and he responded that this was the


    reason why he had called for my books to be put into storage rather than


    entirely removed."





    he refused to attend either Rav Silman's BD or Rav Eliyahu's. Yet he protests that he was not given a chance to present his case!

    ReplyDelete
  2. His claim is true - the announcement against his books was prior to his being summoned to beis din

    ReplyDelete
  3. OK, but his claim that he has enemies, that he can clear his name, that he just needs to talk to the bd to tell his side - they are all empty words.
    Why did he not appear, or ask for zabla?

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED!
please use either your real name or a pseudonym.