Guest post by RaP
An open letter to Jewish parents of daughters in North America, continued:
Dear parents, at this point you may be thinking about where to send your daughter next year after she graduates 12th grade. She is probably 17 or 18 and in the prime of her beauty and life as a young woman! Or perhaps your daughter already graduated 12th grade, finished with high school, and is about to get on a plane to go to Israel or maybe she has left already, if so bring her back NOW!
It is not too late to stop her and make other arrangements, just tell her to come home pronto. She could start shidduchim and dating ASAP and not waste her time getting brainwashed in seminary with useless ideas that you don't want her to have. You have raised her with solid moral and Torah values and she has learned a lot in a bais yaakov-type school or a good Jewish Orthodox day school until now, so what will seminary add besides big expenses and a brainwashed child? or as is now coming out, someone who has faced sexual assaults and emotional abuses at the hands of rabbis, teachers or "perfect strangers" in Israel.
There are seminaries and programs in major American cities that offer a variety of limudei kodesh classes that will also earn college credits at the same time. In the New York Metro area there is the "kosher" Touro College with separate classes for girls. You can be a pioneer and start new post-high school seminary programs for your daughters in the cities where you live. After all, not so long ago, all the Jewish day schools, yeshivas and bais yaakovs in America did not exist once upon a time until pioneering parents like yourselves saw the need and created and founded the new educational institutions and Torah mosdos.
In years gone by parents sent young boys to far-off yeshivas and girls to New York to bais yaakovs. All that has changed now that every major and not so major city in North America with a decent Orthodox Jewish population has built good local Torah-based communal educational infrastructures so that your children can attend local Jewish day schools, yeshivas and bais yaakovs as the case may be. So why then all of a sudden fall into a dumb craze (that's being charitable, it actually functions more like a criminal scam) by sending your young impressionable protected daughter/s to far-off Israel thousands of miles overseas, that now also provably also carries with it the potential for sexual abuse that has come into the open as a hot-button controversial issue reported by Blogs on the Internet and now reported about by major media such as the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Tribune, JTA, the Forward, and others that are reporting about this disgusting "seminary scandal".
Until a few months ago sexual abuses by staff and others against its female student bodies was never openly discussed but now it has dragged an ever-increasing number of high-profile rabbis into this very public imbroglio. Count the power rabbis now hotly involved in this, and counting: First there is the guy who set off this radioactive bomb, Elimelech Meisels who was forced to resign in disgrace following allegations of sexual molestation of students at four seminaries that he owned and controlled. There are two other rabbis who as principals it is being alleged that they knew of the abuse and covered it up and covered for their boss's misdeeds, or turned a blind eye when they should have taken action to oust him and not support him. So that is three rabbis. Then there are the three notable rabbis of the special sex-abuse bais din in Chicago who have issued an advisory warning that the four seminaries are not safe. Then there are the three scholarly rabbis of the special ad hoc bais din that was set up to deal with this problem in Israel (IBD) now protecting the new status quo and at loggerheads with the original CBD over total jurisdiction over the case.
That makes it nine rabbis stabbing viciously at each other, via proxy bloggers online, while dancing on hot coals of controversy. Then a few days ago, another five American Aguda rabbis (half of the American "Moetzes" but not on the Aguda stationary) came out saying that the situation at the seminaries is "fine" and that three more newly-named rabbis in Israel (not part of the IBD) have acceded to act as overseers of the four seminaries in question. Thus it's nine rabbis plus eight more rabbis squirming hither and thither making a total of SEVENTEEN RABBIS as well as two Rebbetzins who have been mentioned as leaders of the seminaries, not to mention that supposedly each seminary has its "to'en" a rabbi (not publicly named so far) who argues on behalf of accused parties or to defend and make arguments on behalf of disputants in front of a bais din, so add four more such rabbis that makes it about TWENTY ONE RABBIS. At any rate, the names of all SEVENTEEN publicly named rabbis are known and it is not encouraging at all as to who they are, as they say "too many cooks spoils the broth"!
Dear parents, if you walked into a room, or a shul or a place supposed to be sacred, and saw for yourself that SEVENTEEN WELL-KNOWN PROMINENT AGUDA-TYPE RABBIS that you knew of were having a huge brawl beating each other up or one group ganging up on another group and going at each other's throats OVER THE VERY SEMINARIES OR SIMILAR ONES in Israel that you want to send your daughter/s to, then would you, let alone your daughter, want to go near such a scene???!!!
There is NO SHALOM BAYIS in the very place you want your daughter to be shaped into a true Bas Yisrael and Aishes Chayil so what kind of person sends his flesh and blood loving child into such a toxic environment? A stupid or reckless one who then cannot turn around say that they were not warned of the problems and dangers that were staring them in the face!
Dear parents, it's hazardous to your life and health, to your pocket book and to the sexual safety of your precious daughters. Everything you worked for and wanted could, and is for some coming crashing down! Please be advised to keep your tender beautiful daughters away from sexual predators and Bluebeards in such a dangerous and harmful scenario.
The time to stop the seminary craze of going to Israel for a year of fun has come, at least to stop the idea and "divine right" of entitlement that kids think they have some sort "payment due" that since "P.H.D." ("Papa Has Dough" -- while often-times he doesn't) they are automatically "entitled" to a one year tour of doing nothing or worse in Israel, maybe even getting groped or raped by some teacher or stranger sometimes as part of "hashkofa" training and there are sickos who use sex as a weapon to "teach victims a lesson" as sick as it sounds it's true, with no recourse to bais din or the police if something goes wrong as the "authorities" will just turn around and say "hey babe, you're over eighteen and you must have been a come-on bimbo or slut, why else did you have sex or neck or mess around, and you are of the 'age of consent' so get lost!" Yes, it's called "blame the victim" and you will not escape its harsh brutality!
Now coming back to the new crew of five Aguda rabbis who have gotten involved in this scandal, all in America with no handle on the situation in Israel, even though they claim that three new rabbis in Israel will be "supervising" the four controversial girls' seminaries now. The leader of the pack in America is an old Brooklyn rabbi Aron Schechter who has the worst track-record in this department, because, as examples, he has covered for and defended a student of his who was a child-kidnapper, another student he defended was committing incest with his own daughters and the rabbi helped him escape justice, and this rabbi also defends to this day the notorious Leib Tropper who extorted and blackmailed gentile women who wanted conversions and even male students into having sex with him and his wife.
This old near-senile Brooklyn rabbi is now leading the group of five rabbis who are telling you that the "seminaries are safe" that should set off all the alarm bells like that old question "would you buy a second hand car from this senile old salesman?" Then another of this group of five rabbis is in Baltimore Aron Feldman has protected an accused pedophile on his own yeshiva's campus and refuses to oust him or bring him to justice. Would you trust such an arsonist like this to put out any fire? Then another lead rabbi Yaacov Perlow has served as the leader of the Aguda openly refusing to endorse the strong repudiation and expulsion of sex-molesters, such as the notorious Yehuda Kolko, from the Aguda world. Another rabbi Malkiel Kotler, who couldn't get a divorce from his wife in Israel so he just married another one in America, and when molesters are found in his community of Lakewood will oust the accusers and protect the molesters.
Would you trust such enablers to serve as references for a safe educational environment or as a "St. George saving the damsel from the dragon" in a school for teenage girls far from home with hormones exploding ready to be deflowered by cunning con men and manipulators in Israel acting as "men of God" and hiding behind pious words of Torah as they practice mind-control to get at the young bodies of your innocent or fun-loving adventure-seeking daughters? And on and on it goes. Scary isn't it?! If you are not scared by this real-life horror film there is something wrong with you!
It is frightening and mind-numbing to digest all this, but fact is stranger than fiction and the truth cannot be denied.
The blood of your daughters will be on your heads if you let them go to these stupid, useless and dangerous seminaries that nobody but the money-hungry owners need with the increasing likelihood that some of the students will be sexually abused and emotionally scarred and crippled for life!
Dear parents: PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Stop the madness and become part of the solution! Shut down all the seminaries FOR AMERICAN GIRLS in Israel. They can find their "salvation" at home in local institutions without the need of "extra-special" brainwashing in Israel! Save your money for better more important things. A girl at eighteen is ready to date from home. It will alleviate the so-called "shidduch crisis" in the Jewish Orthodox world with more younger Jewish Orthodox girls dating earlier! Otherwise you are part of the problem when it does not have to be that way! Hashem Yerachem! (May God have mercy!)