Malky Wigder Alleges Sexual Harassment by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks
by Yerachmiel Lopin
After returning to the US he ran a yeshiva for children from the former Soviet Union.
Eventually he was cut off from pulpit positions because of his reputation. He was also induced to resign from the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) in 2003 and the Rabbinical Board of Queens (Vaad Harabonim) rather than face charges according to a report in the Jewish Week (NY) in 2010.
Nevertheless he presents himself as a rabbi, a marriage counselor and a convener of his own rabbinical court (though no other rabbis are listed by name). Stories of his attempts to use these roles to sexually exploit women are widespread on the grapevine.
Approximately ten years ago, Rabbi Yosef Blau, the senior spiritual advisor at the Yeshiva University seminary, publicly declared:
Ephrayim Bryks has become a rabbinic marriage counselor. The term marriage counselor or life coach can be used by anyone. He is not the only “rabbi” suspected of sexual abuse using one of these titles to access vulnerable individuals or couples both here and in Israel. Consulting actual professionals is expensive and unless the community publicly warns against going to these charlatans (often worse) many innocents will continue to be hurt.Rabbi Blau confirmed to me that he still stands by that position in emails and discussions over the last 3 months.
Malky Wigder posted (6/10/18) on Facebook this description of his sex harassment and behavior after he offered her free help in dealing with a rabbinical court in connection with her divorce. With her consent I am posting her full account.
MUCH MORE:
https://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/malky-wigder-alleges-sexual-harassment-by-rabbi-ephraim-bryks/
by Malky Wigder
EPHRAIM BRYKS:
About a year after my divorce, my ex-husband summoned me to bais din (a pattern of court-bais din- rinse-repeat that lasted for about a decade). I couldn’t afford a toen, which is why I had been stuck with an atrociously unfair and unenforceable separation agreement in the first place. At that time I somehow got in touch with an attorney who was doing pro bono work for women in need of a get. She referred me to a toen whom she recommended highly, and indicated he sometimes reduced his fees for single moms. I reached out to him, and he said that in my case, he would waive the fee altogether. We agreed that he would pick me up from my home to appear in front of Bais Din.
His name was Ephraim Bryks.
On the day of the hearing, as I was getting into his car, out of habit I went to sit in the backseat, as I always would with an unrelated male driver. He told me he wasn’t a Chossid and I should go sit in the front. That must be normal for more modern people, I surmised, and complied (compliance was a lifelong habit I had yet to kick).
As we drove to the bais din, he said something strange. “Let’s make a deal,” he proposed. “I won’t believe anything they say about you, and you won’t believe anything they say about me.” RED FLAG RED FLAG! Well... not to naive, innocent, twenty-eight year old me. I didn’t even wonder what they might be saying about him. I knew my ex was going around saying I went to “bad places,” and when pressed he admitted it was the Lakewood Public Library. So I wasn’t too concerned.
Somewhere in a container filled with legal papers, I have a notebook where Bryks jotted down little quips and jokes to crack me up during the proceedings. I felt reassured that I was in good hands. The hearing went well for me, and there was going to be a follow-up.
Some days later, he called to say he had some papers to drop off, or pick up, or review - some pretext that didn’t quite make sense in the age of fax machines and him living in Queens while I lived in Boro Park. But once again I agreed, unsuspecting.
He drops the papers on the dining room table, grabs my hand, and begins to pull me towards the bedroom. I’m so disoriented and confused, it takes me a minute to process what’s happening, and by then he’s throwing me onto my bed and trying to kiss me.
That snapped me out of my inertia, and I jumped up, telling him to get out of my house. The next few minutes are a blur, as I was in utter shock, but he did leave and I sat behind the locked door, shaking, still bewildered.
For days and nights he called and called and called, left messages, banged on my door, left a case of wine at my door, walked all around the perimeter of the house, knocking on windows, yelling into my bedroom window to let him in. I never responded, but I also didn’t report this to a soul. I was ashamed and horrified and overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness. I have words for these behaviors now - assault, harassment, stalking. I didn’t then. Or it just didn’t compute. This incident had followed years of harassment, stalking and terror by my ex and his stooges, and I just accepted that all I could do was hide and shudder.
I hired a new toen. Everyone wanted to know what happened to that really good one who was working for free. Why am I asking for loans to pay for the new guy? (Fun fact: I had sold my engagement ring, the only piece of jewelry I had been given as a kallah, for $500 to pay a well-known toen, who took my money and then spent the hour telling me that my ex had already approached him and I was screwed).
Here’s the thing I didn’t know at the time, and only found out as my ex-husband and his family began to tell this to everyone who would listen, as proof of my irresponsible parenting. He told it to my daughter’s therapist, the judge, the bais din - he just didn’t think to tell me. It seems I had unwittingly hired a known and prolific sexual predator. My daughter’s therapist accosted me one day, handed me a video tape and ordered me to go and watch it in the rec room. It was a horrific documentary about this man’s past, which I was ordered to sit and watch while my little kids were in the room with me. The therapist demanded to know why I was exposing my children to a pedophile. I assured her my children never met him. I never told her what had happened to me.
(On that note, keep your kids away from Bilah Bendet at the JBFCS).
I’ve reached out to a contact at the CBC to see if he can get his hands on a copy of the video I saw that day, but meanwhile this link contains a transcript.
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/…
https://nypost.com/…/queens-yeshiva-boss-is-a-molester-boy…/
I later found out he had been going from one yeshiva to another, one congregation to another, one rabbinical council after another. Was eventually ejected for his misconduct and he always seemed to land somewhere else.
Recently I heard that he’s been getting involved in conversions, and has a mikveh in his home.
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/accused-pedophile-to-r…/
From the above article, from 2010: “Rabbi Bryks has held leadership positions at two Queens yeshivas, but left for unspecified reasons. He now makes his living as a mortgage broker, has a blog seeking to field questions on halachic issues and is said to involve himself in marriage counseling, advocacy for women seeking religious divorces and in a rabbinical court, the Queens Beth Din, which he convenes with other rabbis.”
- - -
Back in January, I was asked if I would report my experience with Bryks to someone from JCW, and I did tell her this story. I don’t know what, if anything, was done with it. After my three posts last Thursday, I was again contacted by the same abuse blogger, who advised me to “space my further revelations...hold on.” I informed him my next post will be about Bryks, but I did intend to wait a few days. He proceeded to write a post about Bryks on Friday. Asked what that was about, he explained that he wanted to “take the heat off me” because people were already saying that someone with so many complaints of abuse, maybe there is something wrong with me.
Or maybe there is something else wrong with this picture. Hard to know.
****
DEADLY SILENCE: THE MOVIE
While the film’s story is told in an oblique, artistic style, it is very much based in the real case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, who, as principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg, was investigated on charges of child molestation in 1988. Never charged, Bryks had moved to New York in 1993 when a former student in Winnipeg, Daniel Leven, accused the rabbi of having fondled him at the school when he was eight years old.
Leven committed suicide at the age of 17.
READ MUCH MORE:
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/movies/deadly-silence-379091091.html
About a year after my divorce, my ex-husband summoned me to bais din (a pattern of court-bais din- rinse-repeat that lasted for about a decade). I couldn’t afford a toen, which is why I had been stuck with an atrociously unfair and unenforceable separation agreement in the first place. At that time I somehow got in touch with an attorney who was doing pro bono work for women in need of a get. She referred me to a toen whom she recommended highly, and indicated he sometimes reduced his fees for single moms. I reached out to him, and he said that in my case, he would waive the fee altogether. We agreed that he would pick me up from my home to appear in front of Bais Din.
His name was Ephraim Bryks.
On the day of the hearing, as I was getting into his car, out of habit I went to sit in the backseat, as I always would with an unrelated male driver. He told me he wasn’t a Chossid and I should go sit in the front. That must be normal for more modern people, I surmised, and complied (compliance was a lifelong habit I had yet to kick).
As we drove to the bais din, he said something strange. “Let’s make a deal,” he proposed. “I won’t believe anything they say about you, and you won’t believe anything they say about me.” RED FLAG RED FLAG! Well... not to naive, innocent, twenty-eight year old me. I didn’t even wonder what they might be saying about him. I knew my ex was going around saying I went to “bad places,” and when pressed he admitted it was the Lakewood Public Library. So I wasn’t too concerned.
Somewhere in a container filled with legal papers, I have a notebook where Bryks jotted down little quips and jokes to crack me up during the proceedings. I felt reassured that I was in good hands. The hearing went well for me, and there was going to be a follow-up.
Some days later, he called to say he had some papers to drop off, or pick up, or review - some pretext that didn’t quite make sense in the age of fax machines and him living in Queens while I lived in Boro Park. But once again I agreed, unsuspecting.
He drops the papers on the dining room table, grabs my hand, and begins to pull me towards the bedroom. I’m so disoriented and confused, it takes me a minute to process what’s happening, and by then he’s throwing me onto my bed and trying to kiss me.
That snapped me out of my inertia, and I jumped up, telling him to get out of my house. The next few minutes are a blur, as I was in utter shock, but he did leave and I sat behind the locked door, shaking, still bewildered.
For days and nights he called and called and called, left messages, banged on my door, left a case of wine at my door, walked all around the perimeter of the house, knocking on windows, yelling into my bedroom window to let him in. I never responded, but I also didn’t report this to a soul. I was ashamed and horrified and overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness. I have words for these behaviors now - assault, harassment, stalking. I didn’t then. Or it just didn’t compute. This incident had followed years of harassment, stalking and terror by my ex and his stooges, and I just accepted that all I could do was hide and shudder.
I hired a new toen. Everyone wanted to know what happened to that really good one who was working for free. Why am I asking for loans to pay for the new guy? (Fun fact: I had sold my engagement ring, the only piece of jewelry I had been given as a kallah, for $500 to pay a well-known toen, who took my money and then spent the hour telling me that my ex had already approached him and I was screwed).
Here’s the thing I didn’t know at the time, and only found out as my ex-husband and his family began to tell this to everyone who would listen, as proof of my irresponsible parenting. He told it to my daughter’s therapist, the judge, the bais din - he just didn’t think to tell me. It seems I had unwittingly hired a known and prolific sexual predator. My daughter’s therapist accosted me one day, handed me a video tape and ordered me to go and watch it in the rec room. It was a horrific documentary about this man’s past, which I was ordered to sit and watch while my little kids were in the room with me. The therapist demanded to know why I was exposing my children to a pedophile. I assured her my children never met him. I never told her what had happened to me.
(On that note, keep your kids away from Bilah Bendet at the JBFCS).
I’ve reached out to a contact at the CBC to see if he can get his hands on a copy of the video I saw that day, but meanwhile this link contains a transcript.
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/…
https://nypost.com/…/queens-yeshiva-boss-is-a-molester-boy…/
I later found out he had been going from one yeshiva to another, one congregation to another, one rabbinical council after another. Was eventually ejected for his misconduct and he always seemed to land somewhere else.
Recently I heard that he’s been getting involved in conversions, and has a mikveh in his home.
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/accused-pedophile-to-r…/
From the above article, from 2010: “Rabbi Bryks has held leadership positions at two Queens yeshivas, but left for unspecified reasons. He now makes his living as a mortgage broker, has a blog seeking to field questions on halachic issues and is said to involve himself in marriage counseling, advocacy for women seeking religious divorces and in a rabbinical court, the Queens Beth Din, which he convenes with other rabbis.”
- - -
Back in January, I was asked if I would report my experience with Bryks to someone from JCW, and I did tell her this story. I don’t know what, if anything, was done with it. After my three posts last Thursday, I was again contacted by the same abuse blogger, who advised me to “space my further revelations...hold on.” I informed him my next post will be about Bryks, but I did intend to wait a few days. He proceeded to write a post about Bryks on Friday. Asked what that was about, he explained that he wanted to “take the heat off me” because people were already saying that someone with so many complaints of abuse, maybe there is something wrong with me.
Or maybe there is something else wrong with this picture. Hard to know.
****
DEADLY SILENCE: THE MOVIE
While the film’s story is told in an oblique, artistic style, it is very much based in the real case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, who, as principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg, was investigated on charges of child molestation in 1988. Never charged, Bryks had moved to New York in 1993 when a former student in Winnipeg, Daniel Leven, accused the rabbi of having fondled him at the school when he was eight years old.
Leven committed suicide at the age of 17.
READ MUCH MORE:
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/movies/deadly-silence-379091091.html