Articel on NY Post Web-site on religious Jews child abuse

I thought the conclusion they came to was the complete opposite of what you wrote.

wandering chana – I am pretty sure, based on what was published afterwards, that you are correct.

Just to clarify, I was replying to “slave-to-g-d”.

Thank you for summarizing, Aries.

Aries, thank you, thank you. I have just felt like screaming sometimes because I feel like, is anyone paying attention? Does ANYONE care about OUR Yiddishe neshamas who are being utterly destroyed by the monsters among us?? YES, they ARE monsters who would do this to children. It is a horrible mental illness that prompts an adult to violate a child like this. Where is the outrage? How have we gotten to the point where we are so afraid of “Daas Torah” that we allow the destruction of our children to happen in our midst??

And I am not sure, but I can’t imagine anyone here is disagreeing with you. I think some people are put off by the intensity of your argument, afraid you are condemning innocent in a sweep with the guilty. You may not mean that at all but to others who may not understand where your passion comes from it sounds rash. Maybe it is that to which they are responding. Don’t be deterred by disagreement. Continue your work, speak kindly to all (not saying you didn’t) and the truth ALWAYS prevails.

I know because some of the Rabbonim have started to advocate for the victims and are no longer towing the Augdah line, they have reported back to the victims and advocates. They are quite appalled by what they were told.

If all the victims of sexual abuse in the frum community were to step forward, we would be shocked by the amount of people speaking up…

We would also be in further shock to find out who knew what, who swept what under the rug and worst of all where these abusers are STILL employed….

Believe what you want, but there is a problem and we need our leaders to be more vocal about it.

There are already several public cases where convicted abusers have been sentenced to prison and yet some of our “leaders” make excuses for them calling them great people who have been framed by an antiemetic court.

with leadership like this we are doomed to fail our children once again

“with leadership like this we are doomed to fail our children once again”

thats a little harsh…but i get your point and agree completely. the problem is that every time a sensitive issue is brought up be it stigma or sexual abuse or spousal abuse or any similar issue people say “we know its a problem…but why must we air our dirty laundry?”

well…because not airing it is causing immeasurable harm to its victims. like when i wrote my article and now when im working on my book ive been told that by so many people and it always annoys me…because its people like that who keep the problem happening.

DISCLAIMER: i in no way support the gay rights movement or anyone associated with it. the following is just a review of their tactics.

the gay rights movement has been fighting for the right to marry for decades and have finally started to get what they want. when it first started…people said “shkoyach you wanna be homosexual…be homosexual…i dont wanna hear about it” which basically meant that there was no acceptance of homosexuality, but people didn’t want to openly admit their prejudices.

so what the gays did was force the issue by being in everyones face and getting extremely vocal advocates on their side…and slowly public opinion began to shift. they havent gotten what they want yet…but theyve made tremedous headway…BECAUSE they were so vocal about it.

such issues, whether you agree with them or not…can only be fought for by being vocal and outspoken and willing to take some heat…”dont be so vocal” is the refuge of those who arent interested in societal change.

again…i dont support the gay rights movement at all…but there is no doubt something to learn from them. (btw the same applies to the civil rights movement and hippies getting teh vietnam war ended…butliekyea)

People HAVE tried to be more open about the issue, they are mostly BLOGGERS

And what have some said about Bloggers?

They attack the bloggers instead of criminal.

Another place that has gone after criminals is the Jewish Week, Again people attack the Jewish Week and NOT the criminals

aries2756, when I wrote “minimal investigation of the basic facts”, I meant that there is some minimal evidence, or in your words, “raglaim ledavar” to support the accusations. The Rav I heard it from is not from, Brooklyn and that is why he said the police and not the DA.

slave-to-g-d, they made that very clear in their previous announcement, there would have been no need to have this private session to reiterate that. It makes no sense. I believe what I was told.

Did anyone listen to the lecture from Rav Oelbaum on this topic?

yitayningwut, what you say about Rabbonim is true. However, much of what is claimed in the name of Rabbonim comes from self declared “askanim” who are the political element you mentioned. I think a lot of cynicism about “Rabbonim” (and not just about this topic) is that most people have never heard a gadol declare anything, but have heard plenty from self declared mouthpieces whether in the press or elsewhere. That stems from another sorry state of affairs, many people do not have a Rav to call upon and ask or discuss anything and are left trying to sort out what “rabbonim” might have said from newspapers, the blogosphere or from someone at a kiddush in shul.

Yita:

Is it possible that bloggers will make mistakes? Absolutely. They are not gods. But they are trying, and that is all we can ask for.

yitayningwut, very well said.

Some people still don’t seem to get the point.

Have we become a site of ??? ???? ?? ????????? I used to blog on a different site that got much to much anti-Torah and anti-Gedolim. So I came here. Must I cease from here too? I truly thought this would be a more Torah oriented place to chat. I’m beginning to feel disappointed. Very.

I think it goes hand in hand. Rav Moshe writes in a teshuva that people distort his opinion even though he is around to refute them. If someone does not have a Rav, and looks to hear what the Rav says from an outside source, then he will get a distorted message.

You know, Aries makes a good point.

“All true, and the Agudah and other Jewish Organizations will attack the Homosexuals and the act of Homosexuality but will ignore the fact that most molesters are committing non consensual homosexual acts on minors and yet THEY themselves are not only ignoring it but protecting them. How hypocritical can they be? Seriously! “

Aries does not make a good point at all.

If you keep going in that vein, you will both be banned. There are plenty of websites for that kind of stupid talk.

MODS, I didn’t say they condone it I say they ignore it and protect the abusers. There is a difference.

edited. Very well. Do you suppose there is some bad faith on their part?

aries2756 –

I just wish to acknowledge that you clearly mean well. Notwithstanding the fact that I emphatically disagree with you on this one, I believe you are a very intelligent, level-headed, and good person.

Mods, I believe that when they started protecting the Rabbonim they did not have the knowledge they have today. They honestly did not know what kind of damage it was doing to the children. They probably thought that kids are resilient and they will forget about it and get over it. And they should be more concerned about protecting The Rebbeim and the Yiddishe Image. They were concerned about not making a chilul Hashem and about not letting outsiders see that Jews are also human and have the same problems as everyone else.

Now that WE know what kind of damage this has done, the fact that abused children become adult abusers so abuse breeds abuse, it ruins the lives of the victims, the kids go off the derech, they grow up to never have normal relationships in their adult lives or never marry, or they become homosexual, or they turn to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate and numb the pain, trauma and nightmares, or they overdose or purposely take their own lives…..the situation has spiraled out of control both for the victims and for those who protected the abusers.

What are they supposed to do now after protecting so many, admit that they were wrong and tell people to start turning abusers over to the police? Well what happens if one of those they had protected for so long is turned over to the police? What happens if it comes out that so many Chashuv Rabbonim knew about them for many years? What happens to the reputation of the Yeshiva we spoke about in the other thread when the truth comes out that they harbored a molester for decades? What happens when abusers are turned in and their families come complaining to the Rabbonim that they know they protected so and so, why won’t they help their family member?

IMHO, they should say they were wrong for so long, that they didn’t know what the outcome would be for so many innocent children. What they need to do is hold a conference where they invite victims to come in and speak to them, have a panel of Rabbonim in different rooms and let victims stand up and tell their stories. Let there be many different rooms so that many victims get to speak out and tell their stories and let them name their abusers. Let the Rabbonim listen to their pain, let them see the effects on the once innocent and frum kinderlach. Then they can come together and make a decision. Then they can report back to the olam that after reviewing so many cases from the perspective of the victims, they have come to the conclusion that a molester is a “rodef” and the damage they do is too dangerous to take a chance with, therefore one must turn them over to the police just like any other person that is in the category of “rodef”.

I wonder if you or anyone else has any Idea if any of these Rabbonim have ever invited an abuse victim to come and speak to them and hear their story? Rabbonim do NOT want to speak to victims. They do NOT want to hear their stories. They do not want to dirty their hands, or desensitize their delicate ears with the harshness and filth of the truth these victims carry.

This is the painful truth and this is what hurts the most. This is why the victims of abuse say they have no voice. This is how they were silenced. It is not enough that they were humiliated by the abuse itself, they were shamed into keeping quiet. Do you think it feels good not to trust or look up to Rabbonim or those who are supposed to be our leaders? Do you know what it feels like? It feels like being a Yosom, like you lost your parents and you are alone in the world. That is what it is like to lose your faith and trust in the Gedolim or in what we consider Daas Torah. It feels like you had the rug pulled right out from under your feet. The very same people you would not have considered to make a move without checking with, the very same people you would change your schedule around to have the opportunity to meet and greet, or be privileged to chap a few words of chizuk from, you no longer trust or feel any sense of chizuk from, just hypocrisy. It feels like you were shot in the heart and you are bleeding to death. That is what it feels like to lose your respect and your confidence in the chaburah of Rabbonim you trusted all your life. No it doesn’t feel good, but it is what it is and it is NOT going to change until this issue is resolved.

And by the way, MY Rav said to go to the police.

Ok, I think I may as well post here my personal feelings about this.

Being the son of a child molestor, I of course was greatly hurt when everything became public. But I will GLADLY deal with my own pain rather than G-d forbid have my father still on the loose, which can ultimately cause so much more pain to so many more people. So the argument of “we need to protect the abuser’s family”, in my opinion, isn’t strong enough to cover anything up, and will only make things worse. The best thing that can be done is have it reported as soon as possible. And I AM part of an abuser’s family, and I still believe this.

Now, about rabbonim, in my personal situation, I think they did a good job of opening the community’s eyes to what my father was, but they really didn’t provide any help or support to my family. Do I hate them for this? No. I still respect them. Okay, so I think they could have done that part much better. But that in no way diminishes their greatness, or the respect I have for them. You can still respect someone even if you don’t agree with everything they do.

If there was a Caterer in a Yeshiva with 10 kids and needed the Parnossa was suspected of cutting corners and serving non-kosher food and some knew about it because “He Needed the Parnassa” and later it was found out about it by many, There would be a ruckas raised over it. And what if the Rosh Yeshiva maybe heard the rumors that the caterer was cutting corners but chose to ignore them because he was a Baal Habatish person with 10 kids who needed the Parnassa.

Now after 10 years the truth is discovered that the caterer DID cut corners and served non-kosher food to the bocherim, Would such a Yeshiva be worth saving? everyone would be rightfully upset at the yeshiva and I doubt any would still try to pardon the offender.

And Sometimes when it comes to Kashruth some DO make accusations, maybe 5% of the accusations are true, but 95% are FALSE, but we say JUST IN CASE

So why when its an abuser do we feel like we need to coddle an abuser.

People speak about standards , standards of Kashrith, standards of Tzniut, etc, Why cant my standards be ZERO Tolerance of abusers

As some commenters noted, it is blasphemous to proclaim that the Agudah and rabbonim in general are dedicated to protect molesters or uninterested in the safety of children. What is most likely true is that the collective understanding about the problem is severely deficient. Much of the “protection” was done out of belief that the event did not happen, was being exaggerated, or even to protect the family or institution – not to destroy the child. I excuse none of this negligence. But what we read repeatedly are the baseless accusations by fanatics, and that (though perhaps misguidedly) fires up the Agudah establishment to point the finger at bloggers and information technology.

Over the past 2 years, there have been concerted efforts on the part of the gedolim of the Agudah to learn more about the problem from the victims themselves (yes, they have meet many times) and professionals. There has been massive progress within the Agudah to address the problem more responsibly, and no one can deny that. We can debate whether more progress is needed (I feel that there is much more to do). But the slinging of mud, name calling, accusations, and even the sarcasm (which is distasteful, not funny) is ineffective in bringing about change. Publicity won’t help anymore. There are constructive processes that have yielded progress and more of this is needed.

Regarding the “closed door” meeting at the Agudah Convention, which seems to have irritated some people, particularly the bloggers, what’s the problem? I feel that many more meetings should be closed to the public. Fact is that those who wished to get into this meeting were those who have an agenda, and every word said there would be fodder for ridicule and accusation. It was arranged for dialogue, not to issue marching orders. We have all watched the discussions in cyberspace get vitriolic when someone suggested anything other that what those fanatic activists want. And if someone chas veshalom discusses another topic – this only fires up these fanatics – “How can they discuss any other issue when children are being raped and destroyed?” Wake up – Klal Yisroel has many important issue, and abuse is one of them.