Missing the boat: The Consequences of Rabbinic Leadership failing to deal properly with Abuse

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

The issue of child abuse and reporting abusers has seen welcome dramatic changes in the last few years. 2006 was the watershed with the publication of New York Magazine's "Does the Orthodox Community have a Catholic Church Problem." A few years later the Novominsker Rebbe got up at an Aguda convention  and publicly acknowledged that child abuse is a problem also in  our community. Aguda leader Rabbi Zweibel advanced this momentum forward a few baby steps. He announced that it was permissible to go to the police - as long as there was "raglayim l'davar" as determined by a rabbi. Despite this progress there still lingered over our community the shame of public discussion, the fear of being labeled a moser, and the difficulty of finding a posek who would not only say to go to the police would acknowledge that he gave the psak. 

The dam of filth and nonsense finally broke this year with a series of cases. The Weberman case in Williamsburg. A young lady had the incredible courage to stand up to the entire Satmar community including the rebbe and testify despite strong cross examination - that she had been abused by one of the communities most respected activists. The abuser was convicted and sent to jail. The as yet undetermined guilt or innocence in the Chaim Halpern case in England and the  Nachum Rabinowitz case in Brooklyn have many shaking their heads in disbelief. There is the ongoing persecution of Manny Waks and his family for reporting abuse. The Baruch Leibowitz case in which he was convicted and then released for retrial on a technicality connected to the apparently false charges against Samuel Kellner for extortion. Finally the straw that broke the camel's back was the case of Yosef Kolko in which not only was a child molested but a distinguished rav and talmid chachom and his family was driven out of Lakewood - for going to the police despite being told by poskim that he was obligated to do so by halacha. Distressingly despite Kolko's confession and clear evidence of guilt and his conviction - the rabbis who participated in the lynch mob have not acknowledged their error and apologized.

It is clear that child abuse has reached a critical mass in our awareness. The Kellner case involves a very distinguished talmid chachom - Rav Chaim Flohr. He is a man of great principle and very careful with every chumra - and he supported Kellner's reporting abuse.  It is no longer the Modern Orthodox versus Chareidim. There are Charedi poskim such as Rav Moshe Sternbuch and Rav Dovid Cohen who tell people to go to the police. Even Rav Yisroel Belsky has publicly announced he agrees. That which we didn't dare whisper five years ago, is the subject of public discussion at the Shabbos table, is the basis of articles in frum media and programs in yeshivas and camps and even the subject of an Artscroll book.

So what is missing? What remains to be done?

Unfortunately what we are missing are the rabbis, the community leaders dealing with the issue properly - both according to the halacha and the psychological reality. The rabbis by and large are being dragged along as we see in Lakewood, Boro Park, Williamsburg, England and Australia. The consequence of this foot dragging and fear of taking leadership roles - is that they are  being left behind. They are increasing being viewed as irrelevant for the big issues our lives. The tide has come and yet they insist on staying behind. In the Kolko case there were gedolei Torah who told the father to go to the police - and now they publicly deny it. They are afraid! How can a gadol be afraid to acknowledge what he has poskened? 

As a consequence of their lack of constructive participation in this horrible issue, emunas chachom is being conflicted and diminished - chas v'shalom. You can't cause or even allow a father with a molested child being run out of Lakewood - and retain the respect of the parents who have watched this debacle. You can't have kids molested in the mikve and schools, who know that rabbis are the last ones to confide in about their pain. Rabbis who say not to report abusers to the police can not retain the respect of parents and children who know that many more kids will be molested. Everyone except the rabbis know that they have no power to stop a pedophile.

Diagnosis of mental problems by electronic tracking of eye movements

Scientific American    Eye-tracking has become the tech trend du jour. Advertisers use data on where you look and when to better capture your attention. Designers employ it to improve products. Game and phone developers utilize it to offer the latest in hands-free interaction.

Eye-tracking has become the tech trend du jour. Advertisers use data on where you look and when to better capture your attention. Designers employ it to improve products. Game and phone developers utilize it to offer the latest in hands-free interaction.

“Visual scanning reflects a model of the world that exists inside the brain of each individual,” explains Moshe Eizenman, a leading eye-tracking researcher at the University of Toronto. “People with mental disorders have a model of the world that is slightly different than that of normal people—and by moving their eyes, they provide information about this different model.” Autistic children, for example, tend to avoid social images in favor of abstract ones, and they also more rarely and fleetingly make eye contact when looking at faces in an image or video in comparison with nonautistic kids. Similarly distinct, abnormal eye-movement patterns occur in a number of mental disorders, scientists have found. [...]

In a small, proof-of-concept study (pdf) Itti’s team found that their algorithm could classify mental disorders through eye-movement patterns: They identified elderly Parkinson’s patients with nearly 90 percent accuracy as well as children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder with 77 percent accuracy. “This is very different from what people have done before. We’re trying to have completely automated interpretation of the eye movement data,” Itti says. “So you don’t need to have a scientist look at the data to figure out what’s going on; we’re using algorithms and machines to [identify] the linkage between eye-movement and cognition.”

Rav Chaim Flohr's beis din supports abuse reporter Kellner against D.A. Hynes regarding alleged abuser Leibovitz

NYTimes   Five years ago, this gray-bearded and excitable man with a black velvet yarmulke spoke out about the sexual abuse of his 16-year-old son by a prominent Hasidic cantor. As Mr. Kellner helped investigators with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office search for other young Orthodox victims of this man, the Orthodox establishment grew ever angrier at him. The rabbi at his Hasidic synagogue in Borough Park, Brooklyn, denounced Mr. Kellner as a traitor and forbade parishioners to talk with him on the street. Yeshivas barred his sons. His businesses dried up — he pawned his silverware to meet his bills. And he still fears that he will never find a marriage match for his son.  

“I felt murdered and abandoned,” Mr. Kellner said. “I’m ruined.” 

This, however, was a prologue to a worse situation. In April 2011, after the district attorney’s office gained a conviction against that cantor, Baruch Lebovits, the prosecutors turned around and obtained an indictment of Mr. Kellner. They said, based on a secret tape and the grand jury testimony of a prominent Satmar supporter of Mr. Lebovits, that he had tried to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Lebovits. 

District Attorney Charles J. Hynes has shown great deference to the politically powerful Hasidic community over the years, and it has rewarded him with large margins on election days. Even his heralded crackdown on Hasidic sexual abuse was a fist wrapped in the softest velvet, as he took the unusual step of refusing to publicize the names of defendants — even the convicted.[...]

Two weeks ago, I talked with the three-member rabbinical court — known as a Beit Din — in Monsey. These rabbis rarely grant interviews, but spoke now of their moral obligation. Their community for too long has resisted coming to grips with sexual abuse. 

They view Mr. Kellner as a brave pioneer. He did not seek out witnesses at random; rather their court, with the help of local leaders in Williamsburg, gave him the name of a victim. 

“Lebovits is known to have a long history” of sexual abuse, Rabbi Chaim Flohr said. But Mr. Lebovits has powerful supporters, and people are fearful, he added. 

Mr. Lebovits’s lawyers maintain that he is innocent of all charges. 

The rabbis frowned at talk of extortion. Mr. Kellner spoke to them of being offered bribes, and of his determination not to let abusers buy him off. “We are not aware of Mr. Kellner ever asking for money,” Rabbi Flohr said.

Rav Soloveitchik: Mesira doesn't apply in democratic countries

Mesirah In Contemporary Times June 14, 2012  

Jewish Press page 57

FROM A LECTURE SERIES

BY RABBI AHARON ZIEGLER 

[...] Rav Soloveitchik had a different point of view on this matter. He said in the name of his father Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik that the laws of mesirah simply do not apply in democratic countries. Therefore, the determination of how reliable an accusation is should be left in the hands of trained and professional law enforcement personnel and not rabbanim. 

In the haredi world, this position is viewed as marginal, but in the Modern Orthodox world this position can clearly be accepted as mainstream, or even normative.

================
Can anybody provide a specific source that backs up this assertion? The Aruch HaShulchan apparently held this view. From my Child and Domestic Abuse volume II -

Aruch HaShulchan (C.M. 388:7): Comment: It is known to all students of history that in early times in far away lands that a person had no personal security because of bandits and other forces even if these forces called themselves a government. This is still true today for some countries such in Africa where the government itself is involved in theft and robbery. In contrast the governments of Europe and in particular to our master the Czar of Russia and his ancestors and well as the government of England who have spread the protective wings of their governments in foreign lands in order to ensure the protection of the individual in such a manner that the rich do not need to hide themselves to prevent being plundered or killed. This reality of looting and killing was the reason for the halachos against informing and slandering that are found in the Talmud and poskim as we explained them. Thus these halachos only apply to someone who is an informant on others to bandits such as these and is considered a rodef (pursuer) against the person and his property and thus can be stopped even by killing.

Tzitz Eliezar (19:52): 5).....b) Even concerning the non‑Jewish courts it would appear that there is a difference between uncivilized countries and enlightened ones as is stated in the Aruch HaShulchan (C.M. 388:7): All that is written in the Talmud and poskim regarding the prohibition of moser – is referring to distance lands where a person’s life and money are not secure because of the bandits and lawless people – even though they have a government as we find in various countries such as those in Africa… as opposed to the European countries. It is obvious from the words of the Aruch HaShulchan that he truly meant this and not out of fear of the government… As I mentioned, the above was written for the general clarification of the prohibition of moser. Side point: In addition to what we have said that the essential prohibition of moser is to hand the case to a non-Jewish court, but if the times require it and it is done with the permission of the beis din – there is a basis to say it is permitted in a situation where it is not possible for the Jewish court to handle the case. We find an example of this in the Mabit (1:22) concerning the imprisonment of a heretic by the non‑Jewish government and the condition of freedom was to leave the country and to divorce his wife….

Satmar Rebbe:Mesira is prohibited either as lashon harah or as a rabbinic prohibition

Update: I published this several years ago but it is obviously still relevant. In a discussion of which crimes a person becomes invalid to serve as a witness, the Satmer Rebbe notes that in the case of mesira there is a dispute in the poskim what the sin the moser transgresses. He notes that the Panim Meiros holds that there is no Torah prohibition violated but that it is only a rabbinic prohibition even though we find that Chazal were more stringent with a moser then with all the Torah prohibitions and a moser is included with those we can lower into a pit to die. The Beis Meir disagrees with him and says moser in fact violates a Torah prohibition and it is included in the prohibition of lashon harah...

Did Lapid take the core curriculum? Unbelievable takedown - not by a charedi - but by leftist author B. Michael

A rabbi that publicly embarrassed Kolko's victim's family - publicly apologizes

The following is the letter that Rabbi Dovid Epstein wrote to apologize for publicly humiliating Kolko's victim's family. It is an incredible act of courage and hopefully it will motivate others who committed the same aveira - to do teshuva. Rabbi Epstein gave explicit permission for this letter to be publicized. Hopefully this will help in the healing process - and aid in Rabbi Epstein's atonement.

Apology Letter to Mrs S'

Rav S. R. Hirsch: Need for both Torah & Secular education

Rav S. R. Hirsch (Collected Writings Volume VII pp 413-417): Who among us did not know Mr. Y that wonderful man who was so thoroughly imbued with the true Jewish spirit, with Jewish learning, Jewish punctiliousness and Jewish religious fervor? His home was a well-known shining example of a pious Jewish abode in which the Torah was studied and the commandments were practiced so that it stood out like an oasis in the wilderness of present-day moral and spiritual corruption. Anything that bore even the faintest tinge of un-Jewish thought or un-Jewish belief was kept far away from the threshold of that home. Is there anyone who does not remember this father as one of the outstanding and devoted champions of tradition in Jewish communal life, how he fought against all forbidden innovations at the synagogue and at our school, and saw to it that the religious institutions of our community should remain painstak­ingly faithful to the requirements of Jewish law? He regarded ignorance of things Jewish as the greatest of all evils. He viewed so-called modern education as the worst threat to Jewish survival because he felt it would supplant Jewish learning. Mr. Y. therefore regarded it as a sacred matter of conscience not only to get his sons to perform the duties of Judaism most scrupulously but also to make them competent Torah Jews by seeing to it that the sacred writings of Judaism should remain virtually their only intellectual and spiritual nourishment. Moreover, in order to protect them from the poison of modern education, he not only anxiously isolated them from every contact with the "moderns" but filled them with arrogant contempt for all other knowledge and scholarship that he deemed as nothing compared to the study of the knowledge given us by God.

It is said that this man died of a broken heart, grief-stricken because not even one of his sons remained Jewish in feeling and practice. All of them, as youths and later in manhood, had been spiritually ruined by the very tendencies from which he had so zealously sought to protect them in their education. Anyone who knew this man and knows his sons today will see no reason to doubt the truth of this tragedy.

But anyone who would have evaluated his father's educational approach by the standard of Train a lad in accordance with the path he will haw to follow (Proverbs 22:6), our maxim of education, could have predicted these sad results from the outset. The best way tohave our children catch cold the very first time they go out of doors is to shelter them most anxiously from every breeze, from every contact with fresh air. If we want our children to develop a resistance to every kind of weather, so that wind and rain will only serve to make them stronger and healthier, we must expose them to wind and rain at an early age in order to harden their bodies. This rule holds good not only for a child's physical health but equally for his spiritual and moral well-being.

It is not enough to teach our children to love and perform their duties as Jews within the home and the family, among carefully chosen, like-minded companions. It is wrong to keep them ignorant of the present-day differences between the world outside and the ewish way of life, or to teach them to regard the un-Jewish elements in the Jewish world as polluting, infectious agents to be avoided at all costs.

Remember that our children will not remain forever under the sheltering wings of our parental care. Sooner or later they will inevitably have contacts and associations with their un-Jewish brethren in the Jewish world. If, in this alien environment, they are to remain true to the traditions and the way of life in which they were raised at the home of their parents; if we want them to continue to perform their duties as Jews with calm, unchanging determination, regardless of the dangerous influences and, even more dangerous, the ridicule and derision they may encounter; indeed, if the contrast they note between their own way of life and that of the others will only make them love and practice their sacred Jewish heritage with even greater enthusiasm than before, then we must prepare them at an early age to meet this conflict and to pass this test. We must train them to preserve their Jewish views and to persevere in their Jewish way of life precisely when they associate with individuals whose attitude and way of life are un-Jewish. We must train our children, by diligent practice, to be able to stand up against ridicule and wisecracks. We must train them so that they may be able to draw upon the deep  wellsprings of Jewish awareness and upon their own sound judgment based on true Jewish knowledge in order to obtain the armor of determination and, if need be, the naked weapons of truth and clarity, from which frivolity and shallowness will beat a hasty retreat.

Finally, it would be most perverse and criminal of us to seek to instill into our children a contempt, based on ignorance and untruth, for everything that is not specifically Jewish, for all other human arts and sciences, in the belief that by inculcating our children with such a negative attitude we could safeguard them from contacts with the scholarly and scientific endeavors of the rest of mankind. It is true, of course, that the results of secular research and study will not always coincide with the truths of Judaism, for the simple reason that they do not proceed from the axiomatic premises of Jewish truth. But the reality is that our children will move in circles influenced and shaped by these results. Your children will come within the radius of this secular human wisdom, whether it be in the lecture halls of academia or in the pages of literature. And if they discover that our own Sages, whose teachings embody the truth, have taught us that it is God Who has given of His own wisdom to mortals, they will come to overrate secular studies in the same measure in which they have been taught to despise them. You will then see that your simple minded calculations were just as criminal as they were perverse. Criminal, because they enlisted the help of untruth supposedly in order to protect the truth, and because you have thus departed from the path upon which your own Sages have preceded you and beckoned you to follow them. Perverse, because by so doing you have achieved precisely the opposite of what you wanted to accomplish. For now your child, suspecting you of either deceit or lamentable ignorance, will transfer the blame and the disgrace that should rightly be placed only upon you and your conduct to all the Jewish wisdom and knowledge, all the Jewish education and training which he received under your guidance. Your child will consequently begin to doubt all of Judaism which so, at least, it must seem to him from your behavior) can exist only in the night and darkness of ignorance and which must close its eyes and the minds of its adherents to the light of all knowledge if it is not to perish.

Things would have turned out differently if you had educated and-raised your child in accordance with the path he will have to follow;if you had educated him to be a Jew, and to love and observe his Judaism together with the clear light of general human culture and knowledge; if, from the very beginning, you would have taught him to study, to love, to value and to revere Judaism, undiluted and unabridged, and Jewish wisdom and&scholarship, likewise unadulterated, in its relation to the totality of secular human wisdom and scholarship. Your child would have become a different person if you had taught him to discern the true value of secular wisdom and scholarship by measuring it against the standard of the Divinely-given truths of Judaism; if, in making this comparison, you would have noted the fact that is obvious even to the dullest eye, namely, that the knowledge offered by Judaism is the original source of all that is genuinely true, good and pure in secular wisdom, and that secular learning is merely areliminary, a road leading to the ultimate, more widespread dissemination of the truths of Judaism. If you had opened your child's eyes to genuine, thorough knowledge in both fields of study, then you would have taught him to love and cherish Judaism and Jewish knowledge all the more.

Kolko abuse case: Justice for son came at steep price for family

Asbury Park Press   The choice before a deeply religious father was one he never wanted to make.

His son had been molested by a fellow Orthodox Jew, and the local rabbis to whom he reported the abuse did nothing to remove the offender from his positions as camp counselor and schoolteacher.

The father had to choose: He could follow Orthodox tradition and allow the local rabbis to continue to handle the matter, or he could go to the police.

The father went to the police. Now the molester, Yosef Kolko, is headed to state prison.

But some in the community saw the father as the offender for involving the secular authorities in an Orthodox matter. He was ostracized from his community in Lakewood, where he was a respected rabbi, Ocean County prosecutors said. He resigned from his job at Lakewood’s prestigious rabbinical college and moved his family to the Midwest.

Now, debate swirls around the wisdom of the religious taboo that protects suspected abusers from authorities and defies state law.

The ancient taboo, known as “mesirah,” forbids Jews from turning over fellow Jews to secular authorities, but some say the concept is no longer relevant in today’s society.“The bottom line is there’s no justification for not participating in the process for reporting these crimes,” said Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn, a psychologist in Jerusalem who has written three reference books on child and domestic abuse in the Jewish community. [...]

The Pope Who Saved the Talmud by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

Five Towns Jewish Times   There are hundreds of thousands of Jewish people throughout the world who study a specific daily folio of the Talmud in a program called “Daf Yomi.”  To those who study the Talmud, the name Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the founder of the Daf Yomi program, is well known.  What is perhaps less known is that it could be argued that were it not for the efforts of an early Pope, Innocent IV, Rabbi Shapiro may never have been able to launch the program in the first place.  

In other words: No Pope Innocent IV – No Daf Yomi.

A brief background is in order.  In June of 1239, Pope Gregory IX sent a series of letters to the archbishops and monarchs of kingdoms throughout Europe.  The Pope’s letters leveled a series of accusations against the Talmud, inspired by an apostate Jew named Nicholas Donin.  Gregory IX ordered the archbishops to have all copies of the Talmud seized.  In the letter to the Bishop of Paris and the Dominican and Franciscan leaders in Paris, Pope Gregory instructed them to burn the copies of the Talmud that they had confiscated. 

Of all the European monarchs, only one acted scrupulously in fulfilling Pope Gregory’s request.  Louis IX, King of France convened a trial of the Talmud in Paris in 1240.  The verdict?  The Talmud was “found guilty” of the charges and 24 cartloads of Talmudic books were burned. [...]

Indictments for sex crimes in IDF doubled in 2012

Haaretz   The number of indictments for sexual offenses in the Israel Defense Forces nearly doubled in 2012. 

The number of indictments for sexual crimes jumped from 14 in 2011 to 27 in 2012, an increase of 93 percent, according to figures released by the military prosecution. The last time as many such indictments were filed in the IDF was in 2008, when there were 28. There were 26 indictments in 2009 and 20 indictments in 2010. 

In 2011, hundreds of reports were received concerning various forms of sexual abuse – half related to sexual harassment of a physical nature and half related to verbal sexual harassment, said the IDF chief of staff’s adviser on women’s affairs, Brigadier General Rachel Tevet-Wiesel. In 2012, the IDF says reported incidents decreased slightly; but it has not supplied accurate figures.

Trouble ahead: IDF set to slash kashrut inspectors

YNET   As the defense establishment is busy making large cuts to the defense budget to comply with the austerity measures imposed by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, it is one rather small cut that may prove the most politically incendiary: the 25% cut to budget of the IDF Rabbinate that may force the religious authority to withdraw many non-commissioned officers from their posts as kashrut inspectors, meaning it will no longer able to guarantee the provisions handed out to the soldiers are kosher.

Sources at the Rabbinate told Yedioth Ahronoth this could mean religious soldiers would refuse to enter the army canteens; some went as far as suggesting hunger strikes are in the cards.[...]

Chaim Levin awarded $3.5 million for alleged abuse from his cousin

NY Daily News     A Brooklyn court on Wednesday awarded $3.5 million to a Jewish gay activist who sued his cousin for allegedly molesting him for several years when he was a boy.

Chaim Levin, now 24, claimed in a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit that he was repeatedly molested by his first cousin Sholom Eichler at a synagogue, at a relative’s home and at an upstate bungalow where the family vacationed. [...]

A court referee ordered Eichler to pay Levin $1 million for pain and suffering and $2.5 million for future pain and suffering due to the repeated assaults, said Levin’s lawyer, David Krangle. [...]

The statute of limitations prohibited Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes from taking action, a spokesman said. [...]

Assistant D. A. criticizes Jewish Press for coverage of sex abuse

Jewish Community Watch       I know nothing of the organization and this is not to viewed as an endorsement- but the letter seems accurate and to the point.

Please find attached a letter I submitted to the Jewish Press over 3 weeks ago. To date, I havent heard a response. I assume its because Mr. Yanover, the author of one of the articles, is the online editor for the JP. Since sending this letter, the JP has removed the offending article, without posting a retraction or apology. You are free to post my letter, along with the text of this email in order to provide the readers context for the current submission.

Dear Jewish Press,

In light of the publication of two recent articles in your newspaper[1], I find myself writing this letter.  As an introduction, I am, and have been, a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County for the past seven years. During this time, I have handled or been involved with 10,000 – 15,000 cases, including many sex-crimes related cases.  I have interviewed and counseled thousands of victims and witnesses, including various victims of sexual abuse.  I am also a member of the frum community having studied in a variety of yeshivas ranging from Litvish, Bobov and Chabad and I have obtained smicha.

As a person whose profession dictates seeking justice, I have found myself constantly at crossroads with many in the charedi community, including some of their leaders and rabbis.  Many rabbis and members of our community have limited knowledge or understanding of various halachic issues pertaining to criminality and particularly sex-abuse, resulting in a primitive perspective of these issues.  Further, due to the authoritarian structure in place for most of the various communities, we blindly follow our leadership, regardless of the negative example they have set pertaining to this specific area.

Many rabbonim, including William Handler, propose respect, honor, credit and total power be given to individuals who A) possess limited skill, knowledge or ability to handle these matters; and B) have engaged in cover-ups, resulting in innumerable harms to our communities.  Nevertheless, he continues to desire that the community trust such people.  We have created a society where the learned become rabbis and leaders, regardless of acumen, intuition or sensitivity.  Our system of governance is authoritarianism with too much power and credit being given to our “rabbonim.”  I certainly prescribe giving power and adhering to halachic rulings pertaining to areas of expertise, including kashrus, Shabbos and various areas of Choshen Mishpat.  Notwithstanding our rabbonim’s expertise in these areas, they have virtually no expertise in the areas of sex-abuse.

The anatomy a sex-abuse case takes is very complex (and the following is a general statement regarding composition such a case takes):  When a victim and/or legal guardian and/or mandated reporter initially make a claim, they are interviewed by a police officer. This officer may or may not have experience with sex-abuse.  Subsequently, a detective trained in sex-abuse reviews the statement and conducts his own interview of the relevant parties.  The detective may also conduct further investigative work to determine the veracity of the claims, including checking into various objective statements.  Once the detective determines that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case forward, he will provide it to his supervisor for secondary review.  If all parties approve, the detective will then present the case to a District Attorney.   The DA is typically also a trained expert in sex abuse. He will review the case and determine whether there is sufficient evidence to file a case.

An important tangent: A DA is not allowed to file a case unless they reasonably believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. I.e., they cannot willy-nilly file a case just to see how it turns out.  It is a violation of prosecutorial ethics, which can and does result in disbarment.  Furthermore, despite continuous claims by rabbonim and members of the community, of abuse of this power, no one has illustrated any case revealing a bias and a motive for a deputy or assistant DA in filing a case. (Regardless of criticism of Charles Hynes, his office has thousands of cases, and it is not likely that he reviews the cases that do not receive media attention. In Los Angeles, the DA is never involved in cases, including the thousands of sex-crimes cases, unless it is one of major high profile).

If the reviewing DA determines that the case possesses sufficient evidence (the DA may have sent the detective for further investigation numerous times before making this decision), a sex-crimes DA is assigned to the case.  This DA is required to personally interview the relevant parties to determine the veracity of their claims.  If the DA concludes that there is sufficient evidence, and that the parties are being truthful, the DA will file the case.  Next, the case is thoroughly vetted by the system. Either a grand-jury is convened or a preliminary hearing is conducted.  This ensures that an innocent person is not wrongly accused. Rarely, but on occasion, a case is dismissed in its entirety due to various issues (victim/witness refusal or unavailability, loss or destruction of evidence, other evidence pertaining to guilt or innocence is produced, or a person is actually innocent).  Consequently, there are numerous safeguards in place to ensure an innocent person is not wrongfully accused.

Importantly, all the players in these scenarios are trained professionals. Mr. Handler’s accusations that they are pseudo-professionals, notwithstanding.  All have gone through a variety of lengthy and complex training in order to achieve their status and understanding.  A typical sex-crimes DA has attended both university and law school, a DA training course, experienced multiple low level crimes for 1-5 years, managed over 1,000 cases, conducted numerous trials, and received both formal and informal training relating to sex-crimes.  Additionally, sex-crimes DA’s are continuously required to attend various trainings to assist in effective prosecution.  No DA office simply throws some inexperienced individual into the fray of sex-abuse and tells them to figure it out.  Contrast that with the deafening lack of training by our rabbonim.

Mr. Handler’s frantic and hysterical portrayal of governmental systems is designed to undercut the truth and portray a cruel, malicious and vindictive organization. His purpose is to legitimize predators. His purpose is not to protect victims.  He writes these accusations despite numerous rabbonim and battei dinnim ruling that a victim should go to the police (and agreeing that rabbonim lack the training and power to make decisions in this area). He writes despite numerous Torah sources, both modern and ancient, that dictate reporting to the police and maintaining a civilized society.

This brings me to the article written by Yori Yanover.[2]  In an appalling article, Yanover attempts to claim that it’s quite likely the victims are lying regarding an accused predator.  Mr. Yanover has no training in any of these matters; rather, he relies on his own perceived common-sense.  His proof that the victim claims are likely false is based on a chilling documentary known as “Capturing the Friedmans” – a single case from 25 years ago, that was the result of improper investigative techniques.  Amazingly, he is unaware of incredible strides taken in training and interviewing techniques, particularly in sex-abuse scenarios.  He is not an expert on sex-abuse, criminal justice, suggestive interviewing, or any other matter pertaining to the case.  The entirety of his expertise is that he taught 1^st and 2^nd grade for a total of two years.

Finally, both authors attempt to falsely portray that the system is out to get Jews and religious Jews in particular.  This sort of hysteria is counter-productive and ill-conceived.  It further puts our communities in an incredibly negative light.  Ultimately, it is a transparent attempt to protect the predators and the rabbonim who sheltered them.

In light of the many recent events revealing that our community also is affected by sex-abuse, it is time that we stop putting our faith into the rabbonim and rather put our faith into actual experts on these matters.

Sincerely,

Benny Forer

---

[1] http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/molestation-cases-must-be-handled-by-gdolim-not-by-experts/2013/05/26/
http://www.jewishcommunitywatch.org/jewish-teacher-charged-with-molestation-and-fired-on-dubious-grounds/

[2] http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/jewish-teacher-charged-with-molestation-and-fired-on-dubious-grounds/2013/05/13/0/ – The Jewish Press has since removed this article, however, they failed to apologize or issue any sanction for the editor of this article.