Rabbi’s explosive letter exposes suicide crisis in U.S. Haredi community

 https://www.jfeed.com/news-israel/std3g8

A prominent figure in New York’s Haredi community has unleashed a blistering critique of what he calls a hidden "epidemic of suicides," rocking the ultra-Orthodox world in the United States with a call for urgent action. Rabbi Yitzchak Mordechai Brach, a senior leader of the "Chesed Shel Emet" Chevra Kadisha and director of the Yereim Funeral Home in Brooklyn, issued a scathing open letter this week, accusing rabbinic authorities of covering up a growing wave of suicides and failing to address a mental health crisis that he claims is claiming lives weekly.

The letter, published by Kikar HaShabbat, comes on the heels of several recent tragedies within the Haredi sector. Rabbi Brach, whose role in the Chevra Kadisha gives him firsthand insight into the community’s deaths, pulls no punches. "They tell the public stories about accidents, but we – the members of the Chevra Kadisha – know the truth," he writes. "We witness unfortunate cases every week of people ending their lives in ways that defy comprehension."