5 of the 6 suspects in Tel Aviv Belz abuse case Sentenced
Yisrael Haim Shapira, Haim Fishgrund, Moshe Hirsch, Menachem Albershtein and Avraham Pinchas Deitsch were sentenced to a varying lengths of suspended prison terms and community service and were ordered to pay thousands of Shekels to the victims.
These five teachers were charged with various acts of violent abuse and assault on the pupils for a decade or more.
The main suspect, Avraham Rosenfeld, was charged with numerous acts of sodomy against the boys at the Talmud Torah Mahzikei Hadat elementary school and preschool
of the Belz Hasidic community, as well as other indecent acts, extortion and threatening pupils. He has thus far denied all charges and turned down a plea bargain that would see him pend 16 years in prison.
Rosenfeld is accused of ordering boys to come into the recess room, where he would offer them candy, then carry out a variety of sexual acts on them. In addition, he is charged with beating pupils with sticks all over their bodies in front of the class.
Rosenfeld is further charged with tying children to their chairs with ropes and plastic strips, placing a spoonful of black pepper or soap in their mouths, and forbidding them to spit it out, leaving them to cry. He is also accused of prohibiting the children from going to the bathroom, instead ordering them to restrain themselves or relieve themselves in their pants, after which he would order them to clean it up.
Rosenfeld is additionally accused of abusing animals in front of the boys, once allegedly abusing a cat and ultimately killing it in front of them after the cat entered his classroom. He is further charged with abusing his son and threatening his wife.
http://www.jewishcommunitywatch.org/5-6-suspects-tel-aviv-belz-abuse-case-sentenced/
I was a camper at Agudah in the summers of (best recollection) ’67, ’68 and ’69. I remember Rabbi Borchart bellowing on the dining room PA system unconvincingly, “There will be no Color War this year,” and I remember the teams from one summer as being Ahavah vs. Yirah, and another as Zekainim vs. Naarim. At the end of that Color War we learned a song composed specially for the occasion, “Zekainim Im Naarim Yihallilu Es Shem Hashem.”
ReplyDeleteDuring one of those summers my bunk was located in the multi-story building, and the picnic tables where our daily learning sessions took place were not far away. One morning I left my group to use the bathroom near my bunk, and an older guy (a camper, I think from another bunk) appeared out of nowhere and pulled me into his room. He pinned me down on a bottom-level bed and started forcibly kissing me. He touched me through my clothes, which was both painful and ticklish. I was obviously too young to understand the nature of what was happening. I remember feeling that the kissing was disgusting, having no idea as to why a man would kiss another man. I was physically incapable of freeing myself and was terrified. And then he just stopped and got up. He told me leave and not to tell anyone about this or he would kill me. I couldn’t believe what had happened, and just returned to my group, shell-shocked. I quickly put the matter out of my mind, somehow reassuring myself that it was a strange, inexplicable occurrence. A few days or weeks later it happened again, the exact same way, only this time rougher and more violent. And again, I was cautioned to talk to no one. After that second time I do recall telling someone, I don’t remember who. I think he was from that guy’s bunk. I remember him laughing knowingly and saying I was lucky he stopped. He told me the guy did this all the time. From that point forward I was mindful to never go back to my building when it was unoccupied. I told nobody else about any of this, certainly not my counselor. I don’t think I knew how or that I would be believed. And I was scared. And amid all the camp activities it was soon forgotten.
I am not from New York and am not hooked into local news. It was only about two years ago when I was reading for the first time about the charges against Yiddi Kolko, that I recognized his name from my summers at Agudah. I don’t remember his position, but I remember he was a “macher.” I remember a song about him and a guy named Zorch, the lyrics being “Zorch and Yiddi, what a pity...”
And then, like a bolt of lightning, all the memories described above came flooding back. Those events were completely out of my consciousness all these years as though they never happened. And now the recollections were crystal clear. I was stunned; this whole concept of suppressed memories was actually real – because it indeed happened to me. I was raped.
Is any of this responsible for F’ing up my life? I don’t really know, but I can tell you that I just turned 60, and my encounters that summer were the first and last time I was ever intimate with anyone.