Nechemia Weberman's Trial is on October 30th:
Come to the Hearing - and Understand What Went Terribly Wrong
By: Rabbi Yakov Horowitz
During these days leading up to Succos, our z'man simchaseinu, (time of collective joy), one might consider it inappropriate to write about topics that are far from joyous. However, having spent Rosh Hashana at an amazing and inspiring Madraigos retreat, where there were more than a few abuse survivors in attendance, I feel compelled to release these lines at this time, to fulfill a promise I made then to let the survivors among us know that they are not standing alone, and with the hope that it will result in safer practices among those in our community who are seeking help for their children.
After many delays and much legal wrangling, Nechemia Weberman will finally stand trial in Brooklyn Criminal Court on October 30th for allegedly abusing a young girl in the Williamsburg community over a period of three years -- beginning when she was 12 years old.
Mr. Weberman is entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Having said that, quoting the Halachic terms employed in the Teshuva of Rav Elyashiv zt"l, there is clearly far more than "raglayim l'davar" (credible suspicion) in this case. In fact, all indications point to the inescapable conclusion that something is very, very wrong here.
What Parents Need to Know
One of the most important things frum parents - especially those in the "heimish" community - ought to be developing, is a deep understanding of the norms and accepted practice in the mental health profession. Gaining this would allow devoted and caring parents the ability to obtain suitable professional help for their children who need it, and avoid the trauma associated with following the recommendations made by untrained, well-meaning folks (unfortunately, an all too frequent occurrence, one which sometimes creates horrific results).
Moreover, it would help undo the denial and cognitive dissonance of those who defend Weberman -- by pointing out how disturbing were the circumstances of his "treatment" of the young girls referred to him.
Don't Ignore the Warning Signs
Think of it this way. Wouldn't alarm bells go off in your mind if a doctor performed an invasive procedure without using latex gloves, or if he/she picked up a used syringe to give you an injection? Wouldn't you think it strange, if you were a single mother and were requested to meet with your son's Rebbe or principal at 9:00 p.m. one evening in a deserted Yeshiva building to discuss your son's progress?
What Went Wrong
Well, those of us familiar with the do's and don'ts of accepted practice in the mental health profession saw similar blaring warning lights in our minds, as should you when the facts were made public that Weberman:
1) Had unregulated access to many girls over a number of years in his inappropriate and illegal role as their unlicensed "therapist."
2) Had these young girls referred to him for counseling by very Chassidish schools, whose general level of gender separation far exceeds those of the typical "Bais Yakov" (and it would be exceedingly rare for non-Chassidish girls' schools to regularly refer their Talmidos to a male therapist).
3) Engaged in private, unsupervised counseling sessions with young girls -- often in an office/apartment that contained a working bedroom -- violating all norms of Yichud and Tzniyus.
In addition to all these disturbing facts, it has become clear that these serious allegations are in fact not isolated ones. In fact, since Mr. Weberman's arrest, I was personally contacted by immediate family members of four additional alleged victims of his who are afraid to come forward, and those of us close to the community have heard similar reports from others as well.
All the victims - none of whom know each other and all of whom are terrified to go to the authorities because of fear of backlash from the community - report striking similarities in the MO of Weberman (his manner of working), fueling suspicion that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
What is most chilling is that each and every one of his victims who came to us is currently married; meaning that 1) this has been going on for a very long time, 2) if there are current victims who are single, they are even more terrified than the married women of coming forward, for fear that going public will ruin their chances of doing a decent shidduch.
Weberman's case may very well be our community's most important abuse trial during our lifetimes. It is imperative that we have a huge turnout in support of this courageous young lady who, may she be gezunt and ge'bentched, is determined to see this through to the end so others won't suffer like she did. Unbearable pressure is being brought to bear against her and her family to drop the case, which is one of the reasons that a show of support is so important.
Now That You Know
Those of us who work with abuse survivors respectfully implore you to please, please stand with this victim on October 30th, and with the other silent and silenced victims who are watching this case unfold very carefully, and with all survivors of abuse and molestation.
Please pass this on to your friends and family members and I hope to see you at the trial, heeding the timeless charge of Yeshayahu (Isaiah) (1:16) to "Seek justice [and] strengthen the victim."
Yakov Horowitz
www.kosherjewishparenting.com.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The link between childhood trauma and adult outcomes was striking
In the 1990s, Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda conducted a study on adverse childhood experiences. They asked 17,000 mostly white, mostly upscale patients enrolled in a Kaiser H.M.O. to describe whether they had experienced any of 10 categories of childhood trauma. They asked them if they had been abused, if family members had been incarcerated or declared mentally ill. Then they gave them what came to be known as ACE scores, depending on how many of the 10 experiences they had endured.
The link between childhood trauma and adult outcomes was striking. People with an ACE score of 4 were seven times more likely to be alcoholics as adults than people with an ACE score of 0. They were six times more likely to have had sex before age 15, twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer, four times as likely to suffer emphysema. People with an ACE score above 6 were 30 times more likely to have attempted suicide.
Later research suggested that only 3 percent of students with an ACE score of 0 had learning or behavioral problems in school. Among students with an ACE score of 4 or higher, 51 percent had those problems.
In Paul Tough’s essential book, “How Children Succeed,” he describes what’s going on. Childhood stress can have long lasting neural effects, making it harder to exercise self-control, focus attention, delay gratification and do many of the other things that contribute to a happy life.
Tough interviewed a young lady named Monisha, who was pulled out of class by a social worker, taken to a strange foster home and forbidden from seeing her father for months. “I remember the first day like it was yesterday. Every detail. I still have dreams about it. I feel like I’m going to be damaged forever.”
Monisha’s anxiety sensors are still going full blast. “If a plane flies over me, I think they’re going to drop a bomb. I think about my dad dying,” she told Tough. “When I get scared, I start shaking. My heart starts beating. I start sweating. You know how people say ‘I was scared to death’? I get scared that that’s really going to happen to me one day.”
Tough’s book is part of what you might call the psychologizing of domestic policy. In the past several decades, policy makers have focused on the material and bureaucratic things that correlate to school failure, like poor neighborhoods, bad nutrition, schools that are too big or too small. But, more recently, attention has shifted to the psychological reactions that impede learning — the ones that flow from insecure relationships, constant movement and economic anxiety.
Attention has shifted toward the psychological for several reasons. First, it’s become increasingly clear that social and emotional deficits can trump material or even intellectual progress. Schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, are among the best college prep academies for disadvantaged kids. But, in its first survey a few years ago, KIPP discovered that three-quarters of its graduates were not making it through college. It wasn’t the students with the lower high school grades that were dropping out most. It was the ones with the weakest resilience and social skills. It was the pessimists.
Second, over the past few years, an array of psychological researchers have taught us that motivation, self-control and resilience are together as important as raw I.Q. and are probably more malleable.
Finally, pop culture has been far out front of policy makers in showing how social dysfunction can ruin lives. You can turn on an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” about a train wreck working-class family. You can turn on “Alaska State Troopers” and see trailer parks filled with drugged-up basket cases. You can listen to rappers like Tyler, The Creator whose songs are angry howls from fatherless men.
Schools are now casting about, trying to find psychological programs that will help students work on resilience, equanimity and self-control. Some schools give two sets of grades — one for academic work and one for deportment.
And it’s not just schools that are veering deeper into the psychological realms. Health care systems are going the same way, tracing obesity and self-destructive habits back to social breakdown and stress.
When you look over the domestic policy landscape, you see all these different people in different policy silos with different budgets: in health care, education, crime, poverty, social mobility and labor force issues. But, in their disjointed ways, they are all dealing with the same problem — that across vast stretches of America, economic, social and family breakdowns are producing enormous amounts of stress and unregulated behavior, which dulls motivation, undermines self-control and distorts lives.
Maybe it’s time for people in all these different fields to get together in a room and make a concerted push against the psychological barriers to success.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/opinion/brooks-the-psych-approach.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
The link between childhood trauma and adult outcomes was striking. People with an ACE score of 4 were seven times more likely to be alcoholics as adults than people with an ACE score of 0. They were six times more likely to have had sex before age 15, twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer, four times as likely to suffer emphysema. People with an ACE score above 6 were 30 times more likely to have attempted suicide.
Later research suggested that only 3 percent of students with an ACE score of 0 had learning or behavioral problems in school. Among students with an ACE score of 4 or higher, 51 percent had those problems.
In Paul Tough’s essential book, “How Children Succeed,” he describes what’s going on. Childhood stress can have long lasting neural effects, making it harder to exercise self-control, focus attention, delay gratification and do many of the other things that contribute to a happy life.
Tough interviewed a young lady named Monisha, who was pulled out of class by a social worker, taken to a strange foster home and forbidden from seeing her father for months. “I remember the first day like it was yesterday. Every detail. I still have dreams about it. I feel like I’m going to be damaged forever.”
Monisha’s anxiety sensors are still going full blast. “If a plane flies over me, I think they’re going to drop a bomb. I think about my dad dying,” she told Tough. “When I get scared, I start shaking. My heart starts beating. I start sweating. You know how people say ‘I was scared to death’? I get scared that that’s really going to happen to me one day.”
Tough’s book is part of what you might call the psychologizing of domestic policy. In the past several decades, policy makers have focused on the material and bureaucratic things that correlate to school failure, like poor neighborhoods, bad nutrition, schools that are too big or too small. But, more recently, attention has shifted to the psychological reactions that impede learning — the ones that flow from insecure relationships, constant movement and economic anxiety.
Attention has shifted toward the psychological for several reasons. First, it’s become increasingly clear that social and emotional deficits can trump material or even intellectual progress. Schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, are among the best college prep academies for disadvantaged kids. But, in its first survey a few years ago, KIPP discovered that three-quarters of its graduates were not making it through college. It wasn’t the students with the lower high school grades that were dropping out most. It was the ones with the weakest resilience and social skills. It was the pessimists.
Second, over the past few years, an array of psychological researchers have taught us that motivation, self-control and resilience are together as important as raw I.Q. and are probably more malleable.
Finally, pop culture has been far out front of policy makers in showing how social dysfunction can ruin lives. You can turn on an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” about a train wreck working-class family. You can turn on “Alaska State Troopers” and see trailer parks filled with drugged-up basket cases. You can listen to rappers like Tyler, The Creator whose songs are angry howls from fatherless men.
Schools are now casting about, trying to find psychological programs that will help students work on resilience, equanimity and self-control. Some schools give two sets of grades — one for academic work and one for deportment.
And it’s not just schools that are veering deeper into the psychological realms. Health care systems are going the same way, tracing obesity and self-destructive habits back to social breakdown and stress.
When you look over the domestic policy landscape, you see all these different people in different policy silos with different budgets: in health care, education, crime, poverty, social mobility and labor force issues. But, in their disjointed ways, they are all dealing with the same problem — that across vast stretches of America, economic, social and family breakdowns are producing enormous amounts of stress and unregulated behavior, which dulls motivation, undermines self-control and distorts lives.
Maybe it’s time for people in all these different fields to get together in a room and make a concerted push against the psychological barriers to success.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/opinion/brooks-the-psych-approach.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
The leaders who cover up the abuse must be held accountable as well (regardless of the color shmattes they wear)
Dear Paul,
I'm a Catholic and I take my kids to church every Sunday. Church is supposed to be a safe place. But Bishop Robert Finn, who is the head of my diocese (that's a regional group of churches), made our church unsafe for my children when he covered up a child sex abuse scandal.
Last month, Father Shawn Ratigan -- who was a priest in a church near mine -- plead guilty in U.S. Federal Court to producing and possessing child pornography. Father Ratigan used his position as a priest to take lewd images of children in his faith community.
Now a judge has found Bishop Finn guilty of covering up Ratigan's crimes -- Bishop Finn is the highest level leader in the church ever to be convicted in a sex abuse scandal. But despite his conviction, Bishop Finn still has his job as head of our diocese.
I started a petition on Change.org asking Bishop Finn to resign as head of the Kansas City diocese.
Since Bishop Finn's conviction, groups like the National Survivor Advocates Coalition have called on him to resign, and the Kansas City Star published an editorial saying it's time for him to go. Our diocese needs a leader who protects children, not one who protects their abusers.
As a Catholic, I believe in forgiveness, and I think Bishop Finn should be forgiven. But as a father, I don't think he should keep a job where he could put more children in danger. Forgiveness and change can work together.
The Catholic church needs to see that it's not enough to get rid of priests who abuse children -- the leaders who cover up the abuse must be held accountable as well. I know that if thousands of people sign my petition, Bishop Finn will have to resign.
Please sign my petition calling on Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted of covering up a child pornography scandal, to resign as the head of the Kansas City diocese.
Thank you,
Jeff Weis
Kansas City, Missouri
The Proven Petition Site
I'm a Catholic and I take my kids to church every Sunday. Church is supposed to be a safe place. But Bishop Robert Finn, who is the head of my diocese (that's a regional group of churches), made our church unsafe for my children when he covered up a child sex abuse scandal.
Last month, Father Shawn Ratigan -- who was a priest in a church near mine -- plead guilty in U.S. Federal Court to producing and possessing child pornography. Father Ratigan used his position as a priest to take lewd images of children in his faith community.
Now a judge has found Bishop Finn guilty of covering up Ratigan's crimes -- Bishop Finn is the highest level leader in the church ever to be convicted in a sex abuse scandal. But despite his conviction, Bishop Finn still has his job as head of our diocese.
I started a petition on Change.org asking Bishop Finn to resign as head of the Kansas City diocese.
Since Bishop Finn's conviction, groups like the National Survivor Advocates Coalition have called on him to resign, and the Kansas City Star published an editorial saying it's time for him to go. Our diocese needs a leader who protects children, not one who protects their abusers.
As a Catholic, I believe in forgiveness, and I think Bishop Finn should be forgiven. But as a father, I don't think he should keep a job where he could put more children in danger. Forgiveness and change can work together.
The Catholic church needs to see that it's not enough to get rid of priests who abuse children -- the leaders who cover up the abuse must be held accountable as well. I know that if thousands of people sign my petition, Bishop Finn will have to resign.
Please sign my petition calling on Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted of covering up a child pornography scandal, to resign as the head of the Kansas City diocese.
Thank you,
Jeff Weis
Kansas City, Missouri
The Proven Petition Site