by Aharon Hersh Fried, PhD - Klal Perspectives Summer Edition
Where Should We Begin?
A GROUP OF SCIENTISTS IN KENYA, seeking to protect a collection of valuable acacia trees from the harmful grazing of elephants, giraffes and other large mammals, erected a fence around them. Unexpectedly, a number of these “protected” trees declined.
A closer examination of the trees and the animal life they supported revealed that these trees provided shelter and food (in the form of nectars) to three species of ants, while the insects protected the tree against pests, like stem-boring beetles. The scientists found that when elephants, giraffes and other large mammals could no longer graze on the acacias, the trees produced less of the nectar needed to support an aggressively defensive species of ants that was fighting off the beetles. As this ant colony size decreased, and a new and less protective ant species became dominant over the others, the acacias became vulnerable to scale insects and wood-boring beetles.
Overall, the researchers found that the death rate of the fenced-in trees was double that of unfenced ones, and they grew 65 percent more slowly.[1] Thus, because the intricate interrelationships of the ecological environment had not been adequately taken into account, the scientists’ “protective” measure served instead to bring about substantial harm.
Fundamentals of Leadership
This incident illustrates the complexity and responsibility in decision making that accompanies and defines leadership.
Attempting to solve a “problem at hand” cannot be undertaken without first understanding its ecology, i.e. in what environment it resides, what fosters it and what limits it, and what unintended consequences may result from proposed solutions. Perhaps most clearly, this incident underscores the importance of having real information about the “facts on the ground.” It is simply irresponsible to base important decisions on hunches and hypotheses, regardless of how logical and convincing they may seem.
If we were to succeed at organizing our communities into a Kehilla structure that would adhere to the advice and rulings of a central committee akin to the Va’ad Arba Aratzos, it would behoove the members of that Va’ad to have an informed framework for problem solving and decision making – one with a strong foundation of fact-finding and research.
To ensure that the takonos of such a Va’ad be considered a בנין זקנים, the Va’ad would need to appreciate that any change (read takono) introduced into a community will affect more than its immediately apparent goal, with repercussions to consider. Decision makers will need to acknowledge and understand the complex interconnectedness and interdependence of the many individuals and institutions in each community.[2] Thus, individuals belong to families, which they affect and that affect them. Families and institutions (such as schools, shuls, and many more), exist in neighborhoods and communities which they affect and that affect them. Neighborhoods and communities and are located in towns and in cities – each with their own unique culture and social and economic realities – which affect them, and which are also affected by them. And everyone affects and is affected by the larger culture of the country in which they live.
Consequently, a Va’ad would need to appreciate that the same problems presenting in different communities may require very different solutions. Factors to be considered include not only each community’s nuanced colorations of minhag, belief and practice (Ashkenazi, Sefardi, Yeshivish, Chassidic, Modern Orthodox, and more), but also the characteristics and influences of the general non-Jewish population within which the Jewish community is embedded. As the Steipler Gaon advised someone asking about curriculum in an American Yeshiva, “Go ask people who are involved in elementary education. But remember that not all that is good for Bnei Brak is good for Cleveland.” And, of course, the Va’ad will need to identify those principles that are so fundamental and universal that they apply to all alike – at least conceptually, if not always in implementation.
As a “fly on the wall” at the Va’ad’s deliberations, one might witness the frustrations they would confront in trying to address the needs of the klal clearly and objectively. Individuals and delegations from each segment and constituency of American Orthodoxy would advocate what they believe to be everyone’s most pressing problems. The Va’ad would need to distinguish between communal and individual problems, set priorities, and identify the issues, decisions and governance that should be addressed locally and which policies should be addressed with a national perspective. And they would need to acquire an understanding both of the factors that contribute to a community’s problems, as well as those that give them strength and protection.
If it is to be responsible and effective, all of the Va’ad’s functions would require proper research. Otherwise, it is likely to do nothing more than function reactively to impulse diagnosis and the crisis-de-jour. If created today, the Va’ad’s greatest frustration would likely be the dearth of available information necessary for such communal decision making.
In reality, of course, adequate and objective information, and the actual research to support communal decisions, are necessary to any form of communal leadership. The astounding paucity of communal data and information may be the very reason that the creation of a Va’ad, or any form of a global infrastructure for American Orthodoxy, seems simply unimaginable and not even worthy of investment or exploration. In fact, it may also be the cause of the currently diminished role and respect for any form of communal leadership and infrastructure. If American Orthodoxy has aspirations of tackling its challenges in a responsible manner and in constructing an infrastructure deserving of respect and deference, the community must first establish and sustain a strong multidisciplinary data-gathering task force that will produce the information and data necessary to proper decision-making.
The Product of Research
Some may be wondering whether such research is really necessary. Can’t anybody with half a brain simply look around our communities and see what causes what, and what needs to be fixed? In fact, of course, this view – widespread and self-evident as it may seem – is fundamentally erroneous.
For years, our community’s approach to identifying and addressing problems has followed a recognizable and predictable pattern. A good, well-intentioned person or group notices a problem in their community. Studying the problem within the confines of their communities, and based on their personal experiences, they reach a conclusion about the culprit or cause of the problem. The purported cause will then be publicized and decried, sometimes accompanied by a call for an all-out effort to eliminate the alleged cause and thereby eradicate the problem. Everyone then gets busy eradicating the purported cause, but not attending to the problem itself. Unfortunately, this approach has rarely worked.
An example of this approach has been the community’s approach to “children at risk.” Depending on what is in vogue, and on the background and interests of those decrying the problem, this phenomenon has been blamed on any one of a series of causes, including kriah (Hebrew reading) problems, poor teaching of Gemoro, a curriculum which is impossible for some children to keep up with, poor self-esteem, broken homes, Jewish schools rejecting children, faulty parenting, incompetent rabbeyim or teachers, and communities being insufficiently accepting of children who “march to the beat of a different drummer.” Additional culprits have been the lack of discipline in homes and schools, physical or sexual abuse of children, schools failing to teach enough hashkafa, parents and teachers unwilling or unable to answer children’s questions about Jewish belief and practice, the media, and of course, the Internet.
At different times, each of the above has been cited as the major cause of the problem, supported by allegedly authoritative “statistics,” which themselves are most often incomplete or totally fictitious, and almost always unaccompanied by a citation or any reference to their source.[3] In response to each alleged cause being promoted, those who are the alleged perpetrators of the cause, as well as those who should have prevented the cause, immediately point to examples of children at risk who were not impacted by the purported cause as well as children who had been subject to the purported cause but were “unaffected.”[4] After an initial ballyhoo with much finger pointing, the various claims and counterclaims usually cancel each other out and the alleged cause fades from the radar screen. The challenge of “children at risk” thus remains and may actually be growing. But as a communal agenda, the concern has receded in favor of other “problems of the hour,” without ever having been properly or thoroughly addressed.
Aside from the flawed methodology of assigning a causative role to any single factor, the identification of a single primary cause harmfully deflects responsibility from all the other possible contributing causes. For example, if the established premise is that the sexual abuse of children and the Internet create all the children at risk, scant attention will be paid to kriah problems, to our failure to answer children’s questions, to physical and mental abuse in dysfunctional homes and schools or to any of the other important issues mentioned above. The “causes” of children at risk, of course, may very well be, “all of the above,” albeit at different times for different children. The truth is that all these factors need to be addressed.
Key Dimensions of the Research Process
Absent proper research, the community is unable to construct a methodically sound and consistent approach to addressing any of its challenges. In order to demonstrate the value, and in fact the necessity, of quality research in addressing community challenges, I offer here an in-depth, research-based analysis of the “children at risk” phenomenon. This discussion is intended to serve as an example of how a given challenge can be explored in a manner that leads to meaningful opportunities for legitimate solutions. I trust the reader will find this a valuable exercise.
Step I - Ascertaining the “What” of our problems
A prerequisite to addressing problems is identifying their nature and prevalence. Are they rampant or localized? For example, unsubstantiated numbers abound regarding the number of children who are either “off the derech,” or who are only “walking the walk, and talking the talk.” Articles decry the massive numbers of teens keeping a “half-Shabbos,” i.e. texting on Shabbos. But how real are these numbers? Even if a small survey has actually been conducted in some circumscribed community, are the numbers produced true for all communities? Some argue that details do not matter because “even one is too much!” Certainly every Jew is precious, but the first step in remedying a problem is identifying its scope, delineating its parameters, and, by so doing, possibly finding clues that highlight its causes.
This is the model used in medicine. Before medical researchers can speak of the etiology of an illness, they perform an epidemiological study. Identifying the exact populations or locations in which an illness occurs frequently provides clues about what may be contributing to the cause of that illness.[5]
Step II – Identifying Contributing Causes
It is important to avoid thinking in terms of “what causes the illness,” but rather in terms of “what contributes to the cause of the illness.” The distinction is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, years of experience have taught researchers that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain definitive causes, especially in the social sciences. Thus, most assertions of “cause and effect” are based on observations of the confluence of two events. For example, one may point out that “most boys who are off the derech have been beaten by punitive parents.” In actuality, finding that two factors tend to occur together merely indicates that they are co-related. It says little or nothing about cause and effect. After all, has it been established which is the cause and which is the effect?
For example, the finding that a very high percentage of juvenile delinquents have been beaten by their fathers does not necessarily mean that “children who are beaten become juvenile delinquents.” It is equally plausible that “children with difficult natures and anti-social personalities tend to bring out the worst in their parents and, as a result, get beaten.” It may also be true that the two factors – fathers beating children and children becoming Juvenile Delinquents – are not at all causally linked, but are rather both a result of a third factor, such as poverty. Perhaps fathers failing to make a living are tense, on edge, and angry, and thus prone to beating their children. And it may also be true that children raised in poverty, pining for luxuries enjoyed by others and seeing no obvious way to achieve success themselves, are more prone to delinquency to earn a quick buck. Thus, the presence of two factors, abusive fathers and juvenile delinquents, are not necessarily cause and effect. The basic rule in research is “correlation is not causation.”
Another, and perhaps even more pertinent, reason for shying away from the term “cause” is that research in the social sciences and in education has revealed that a single factor is rarely the cause of any problem. To quote one prominent researcher in the area of juvenile delinquency (Jessor 1993)[6], “Research has shown us that no single variable (such as self-esteem), no single setting (such as the inner city), no single explanatory concept (e.g. genetics, personality, environment), can handle the data. Instead, we have a web-of-causation, i.e. many factors that directly or indirectly have an impact on a person’s development.”
Not only do most problems have multiple causes, but almost every “cause” that puts an individual at risk for developing a specific problem may be offset by some other factor that tends to protect from and to prevent the development of that same problem. For example, a boy growing up in a strife-filled home, who is rejected by his school due to persistent failing, may nevertheless grow up healthy if there is a family member, an older friend, a religious leader, or simply an interested adult who takes him under his wing, inviting him to his home where he may experience some normalcy. Perhaps this caring adult will teach the child a skill or a trade that helps him feel successful in some way. Research must thus look not only at what causes “at risk” behavior, but also at what prevents such behavior from developing despite the presence of risk factors.
In light of the above, instead of seeking and speaking of a problem’s causes and culprits, it is more productive to speak of “risk factors” and “protective factors.” Factors that put a person at risk of developing a given problem should be identified, as should factors that protect against the debilitating effects of the risk factors.
It must also be understood that explanatory domains for behavior are bidirectional and reciprocal, i.e., they affect each other and are reactive to each other. For example, a child who is doing poorly in school may, as a result, also receive negative messages at home, and thus perform even more poorly in school. The entire “web of causation” must be studied – both how events and factors directly and indirectly affect children, and how children are affected by them, both positively and negatively.
Perhaps this concept can be clarified with an example from research on the problem of juvenile delinquency. The table below is taken from Jessor’s paper on the study of juvenile delinquency, cited above.
The table presents the various levels and domains of causation for juvenile delinquency. It is organized into three levels, as follows:
The various risk and protective factors that may contribute, positively or negatively, to the development of risk behavior amongst adolescents [top row of the chart]. This includes factors in various life domains, including: biological predispositions, a child’s actual social environment, the child’s perceived environment, the child’s personality and his actual current repertoire of behaviors. Each of these domains contains some factors which may increase the probability of a child’s engaging in risky behavior (i.e. risk factors), and also some factors that may decrease the probability of a child’s engaging in risky behavior (i.e. protective factors).
The various risky behaviors in which adolescents engage (e.g. truancy, drug use, drunk driving, etc.).
The outcomes of risky behaviors (e.g. poor health, school failure, compromised job prospects, low self-esteem, poverty).
Note that in the first row there are bi-directional, horizontal arrows pointing from one domain to another. The message is that factors in one domain may influence factors in another, and also be influenced by them. For example, a child with a difficult temperament will tend to see life more negatively and will also react to negative events in his social life.
There are also bi-directional, vertical arrows pointing in both directions. These convey that life is dynamic, and that once a child has engaged in a particular behavior, such behavior is likely to affect other factors in the child’s life. For example, a child who completes his school-work and realizes some success will also be changing his perceived environment, and perhaps even his friends. By driving drunk, a child negatively affects his own self-image and his perceived chances in life. While this process is certainly complex, it is also encouraging since it provides many avenues for improving lives in our communities.
Step III – Planning and Attempting Solutions
The fruits of research not only illustrate the web of a problem’s causation, but also the web of factors that operate to protect against that same problem. Research not only points to multifaceted, comprehensive solutions, it highlights which dimensions of communal life warrant improvement and the likely results we can hope to see from possible changes. Research can also demonstrate how a few minor changes can have a large effect, even when the underlying problems cannot be solved.
Furthermore, even once solutions are being implemented, continued research makes it possible to measure progress realistically and it can alert to any need for fine-tuning or for large-scale changes.
The Scope of Necessary Research, and How to Proceed
The first dimension of a research plan for community analysis is to ascertain the breadth and depth of the community’s problems in the sphere of concern. Using chinuch as an example, below is a prototypical approach, equally applicable to other spheres:
Step I: List the various problem areas in chinuch, including those that result in problems, those that result from problems, and those that do both.
Applying this methodology to the painful area of “children at risk,” (as in “off the derech”), the first step – as in any research project – is to conduct a review of all relevant literature. What research has been conducted regarding juvenile delinquency in the general population, and what are their findings? Though “off the derech” is not necessarily the same as “juvenile delinquency,” and the Orthodox community is culturally distinct, there remain enough parallels to deem the study of existing research on juvenile delinquency a worthy starting point.
In the general literature, as in the Orthodox community, various causes and culprits have been identified, which can be divided as follows:
Problems residing in children (i.e. Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, emotional or personality disorders, the hubris of adolescence, and the like).
Problems residing in the schools: Poor teaching, curricula appropriate only for the elite (whether by dint of level of difficulty or content), elitism, rejection of children on academic, intellectual, religious, or social grounds (they are not from the “right” families).
Problems in the home: Strife, disorganization, poverty, lack of communication, abuse and/or neglect.
Problems in the community: Lack of communal organization, an exclusive social hierarchy, including in who is respected and honored, who is granted recognition and privilege and who gets shidduchim.
Problems in the larger culture: Its insidious intrusion and influence, the low and base moral and ethical level of popular entertainment, the dangers of social media and the Internet, the easy availability and access to smut. Some suggest that the influence of the scientific attitude and the general culture of rationalism and free-thinking negatively influence our children.
No doubt, each of these factors plays some role, whether contributing to a problem, being fed by and in turn worsening a problem or serving as risk factors (or to some children, even protective factors).
This comprehensive approach will not lead to solving, or even substantially affecting, all of these problems. And there is no guarantee that the research literature will be full of great insights and ideas ready to be implemented. Much can be learned, however, from reviewing the literature and seeing how the progressive accumulation of information about problems has informed solutions in many communities, and in many cases very effectively. We do not always have to start from scratch and “reinvent the wheel.”
Step II: Conduct actual research within the Orthodox community, with the initial goal of identifying and quantifying the extent of the problems –for example, what percentage of Orthodox children actually go “off the derech.”
One approach to such a study might be to randomly select twenty elementary schools that are representative and inclusive of some of American Orthodoxy’s key demographics (i.e., “in-town,” “out-of-town,” Chassidic, Yeshivish, Modern-Orthodox). The graduating (8th grade) class of the year 2000 would be reviewed, student by student, determining the current status of each student. At the simplest level, this review would provide an introductory estimate of the percentage of children who go off the derech. It would identify any significant differences between the varying categories of schools and communities. For purposes of comparison, it would also be important to record the percentage of children entering each school’s preschool that are from observant homes, and what percentage of an elementary school’s population continues to a Jewish high school.
The questions would then be further refined to gain further knowledge. School records would reveal how well each child was progressing, and whether anything stood out, such as struggling with kriah, or in other parts of the curriculum, or sudden changes in grades. Teacher’s comments could also provide insight into the emotional and behavioral state of each child, as well as their social situation.
The findings regarding the impact of school and community categories would be instructive to both parents and educators.[7] Without identifying the individual schools, we may be able to point to higher percentages of children at risk in one population than in another, or we might find the same, but with different profiles pointing to different risk factors in each population. We may find that children with learning problems were at greater risk, or we may not. We may discover what protective factors helped some children grow in a healthy manner, where others did not. Research may thereby instruct the community as to which dimensions of our schools require strengthening and which need to be modified, what programs need to be added, and which of our programs may be harmful and should be discontinued.
Research Programs in other Areas
Research of this type can be conducted in many areas, such as the problems of divorce and the increase in broken engagements. Many “causes” have been suggested for these problems: the lack of midos, immaturity, the lack of education and preparation for marriage, the Internet, the lack of parnassah (livelihood), and plain and simple lust. To pick one area of interest, many have suggested that at a fundamental level, an insufficient emphasis on midos is at fault, and that we have raised a generation of people who feel entitled to get their way – how they want it, and when they want it – and that they are not willing or ready to work on a relationship. Is this so? There is some very interesting research and some interesting research tools that have been developed for the study of values and the extent to which people hold them and guide their behavior by them. If we do find that our young people lack values or midos, it would then behoove us to ask what protective factors exist in the many marriages that do remain intact. Again, this would be a complex set of activities, but it would lead to possible fruitful knowledge and change.
A proper think tank, peopled by a multidisciplinary team of researchers as well as by businessmen, talmidei chachomim, and serious baalei batim, could, over time, with the guidance of professionals learn to ask the right research questions, formulate ways to answer them, and come up with practical advice and suggestions for change and improvement in our communities. This will provide a Va’ad of rabbinic leaders with the information that is so crucial for responsible decision making.
Aharon Hersh Fried, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology and Education at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University and maintains a private practice in Psychology.
NOTES
[1] Palmer, T.M. et al (2008). Breakdown of an Ant-Plant Mutualism Follows the Loss of Large Herbivores from an African Savanna. Science 11 January 2008
[2] The individuals (men, women, and children), family units (nuclear and extended), schools (elementary, high school, and beyond, girl’s schools, boy’s schools, schools for the learning disabled, for the severely disabled, for the handicapped, as well as for those of our young who are seen as dysfunctional, “off the derech”, or delinquent), shuls, batei dinim, kolelim, hospitals, batei avos, chesed organizations (bikur cholim, tomchei Shabbos, Kimche D’Pischa, Hachnasas Kallah), kiruv organizations, the wedding halls, fund raising institutions, parnassah generating institutions, and umbrella organizations serving as liaisons to government agencies and to the general population are all intertwined and interdependent, often with overlapping directorates, and at times with at least partially or temporarily competing agendas.
[3] There is a very telling video on YouTube of a “mover” in Eretz Yisroel trying to convince Reb Aharon Leib Steinman Shlita to place a ban on the modern Jewish singers and musicians. At one point he exclaims, “Most of those who leave the Torah way of life (Poshrim) leave as a result of their listening to these singers!” Reb Aryeh Leib asks him, “But I was told that the Poshrim are caused by the Internet?” at which point the “mover” backtracks and says, “Yes, but it’s via the Internet that they get the discs of these singers.”
[4] I well remember, when in the early days of the “children at risk” brouhaha; when the Jewish Observer published not one, but two special editions on the topic (November 1999 and March 2000), a mechanech, whom I highly respect, telling me that all the children at risk he has seen, even those who were unsuccessful in their learning, came from problematic families. It was not the Yeshivos who were at fault, and there was little or nothing they could do about it.
[5] To cite one example from medical research: In a paper published in 1989 [Olshan, Andrew F., Baird, Patricia A. Teschketa, Kay Paternal Occupational Exposures and the Risk of Down Syndromes, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 44:646-651, 1989) a study is described wherein 1,008 cases of live-born Down’s syndrome in British Columbia, Canada, were identified for the period 1952-73. An analysis of the occupations of the fathers of these children showed that they were likely to be working in occupations which exposed them to solvents. Thus the study of prevalence led to discovery of a probable cause.
[6] Jessor, Richard, Successful Adolescent Development Among Youth in High Risk Settings, American Psychologist , 117-126, February 1993
[7] This would of course be a somewhat weak study, being that much of the data would be retrospective in nature, i.e. looking back and gathering data from the past. Future studies could follow children prospectively from childhood to adulthood. Rich data and information has been gathered in this way in other communities. We need to begin somewhere.
EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
Friday, August 02, 2013
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Remembering the Tendlers!
Family Of 10-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Raped By Bronx Teacher Demands Justice
Anthony Criscuolo, 40, Indicted On Rape Charge; Waives Court Appearance
Anthony Criscuolo, 40, was charged with two counts of predatory sexual assault against a child, two counts of rape in the first degree, three counts of sexual abuse in the first degree and endangering the welfare of a child.
Criscuolo is facing a maximum sentence of up to 25 years to life imprisonment if convicted of the most serious crime, predatory sexual assault against a child.
Criscuolo waived a Monday court appearance and refused to testify in front of a grand jury.
The alleged victim is one of Criscuolo’s fifth grade students at P.S. 386 in Fordham Heights, police said. According to the criminal complaint, the alleged abuse of the 10-year-old girl had been going on for at least two months.
The family of the 10-year-old girl is demanding justice.
‘They destroyed the life of that little girl who was just starting to grow and develop, and become a little girl, not even a teenager, so it’s very hard fro them,” the girl’s cousin Lourdes Murphy said.
St. Sen. Ruben Diaz and other officials stood with Maria Reyes, the alleged victim’s grandmother, at a rally outside Bronx Criminal Court where 40-year-old Anthony Criscuolo was scheduled to appear Monday.
His attorney said Criscuolo waived his appearance in court on Monday because he didn’t want to face the media or the girl’s family, CBS 2′s Kathryn Brown reported.
“I don’t sleep, I cannot eat because that beast took my life, he broke my heart,” Reyes said through a translator. “I need the full extent of the weight of the law to be put in this case because I don’t want this to keep happening to other children.”
play VIDEO
- Criscuolo was arrested last Wednesday on charges of first-degree rape, predatory sexual assault against a child, attempted rape and endangering the welfare of a child, authorities said. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The first incident happened sometime in April when he sexually assaulted the girl at the school, the criminal complaint said. He did it again sometime in May, allegedly telling the girl, “I’m doing this because I like you,” authorities say.
The most recent attack happened last Monday when investigators said he wrote a letter on what appeared to be school letterhead, informing the girl and her parents that she had been chosen to receive a special award, Brown reported.
Criscuolo offered to take the girl to the ceremony, but instead police said he parked in the school lot and raped her in his car, Brown reported.
The girl’s mother called police after discovering explicit emails he allegedly sent to the girl, authorities said.
“The email that he sent the little girl, ‘I’m sorry I was rough, the pain will go away,’ How repugnant can he be?” Diaz said.
Assemblyman Marcus Crespo said it’s critical “that we shield this young girl, that we protect her, that we council her, that we console her and the families.”
Criscuolo started teaching in the city in 2002 at P.S. 178. In 2010, he transferred to P.S. 498 in the Bronx. A year later, he went to P.S. 386, where he has taught fifth grade special education.
The family of a 10-year-old girl allegedly raped by her Bronx teacher hold a press conference on June 24, 2013 (credit: Alex Silverman/WCBS 880)
“I am calling for justice and for a thorough investigation of any other complaints filed against Anthony Criscuolo to be sure that no other children who trusted him as their teacher has also been harmed,” Diaz said in a statement.
Reyes is calling for greater school security and cameras in the classroom.
“I need cameras in the schools, more police officers, more school safety officers to be vigilant in the schools,” Reyes said.
The Department of Education said Criscuolo has been reassigned to a non-teaching position and is banned from the school. The department is also seeking his termination.
Criscuolo is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment on Friday, July 26 in State Supreme Court.
He is being held in lieu of $750,000 bond or $500,000 cash.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
NOTHING BUT A FILTHY - ROTTEN - STINKIN' - SOB - ANTI -WASP JUDGE!
Three former high-ranking Penn State officials, including the university’s former president, Graham B. Spanier, were ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges that they were part of a cover-up related to the child sexual abuse scandal involving the former football coach Jerry Sandusky.
After a two-day preliminary hearing this week, Harrisburg District Judge William Werner decided there was enough evidence against Spanier, the retired university vice president Gary Schultz and the former athletic director Tim Curley to proceed with a trial, which could start later this year. That would be the next public chapter of the scandal, which threw the university and its most prominent athletic program into turmoil.
After a two-day preliminary hearing this week, Harrisburg District Judge William Werner decided there was enough evidence against Spanier, the retired university vice president Gary Schultz and the former athletic director Tim Curley to proceed with a trial, which could start later this year. That would be the next public chapter of the scandal, which threw the university and its most prominent athletic program into turmoil.
The news came on the eve of another football season, the second under Coach Bill O’Brien and the second without Joe Paterno. Paterno, Penn State’s famed former coach, died in January 2012 after he was fired in the wake of the public disclosure of the allegations against Sandusky, a longtime top assistant for the team. Nine months later, Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.
Two weeks ago, Penn State’s board of trustees authorized the payment of about $60 million to settle claims made by dozens of Sandusky’s victims.
The university and the community have tried to move beyond the scandal. Paterno’s likeness is no longer omnipresent in stores and restaurants around the campus in State College, Pa., and a statue of him was removed from outside the stadium. Spanier, Curley and Schultz all lost their jobs.
The numerous charges against the men include perjury, conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children. During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors accused the men of knowing of abuse allegations against Sandusky but failing to properly report them. They are also accused of hiding information from investigators and lying to a grand jury.
The allegations stem from an episode in 2001, in which the former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary said he saw Sandusky molesting a boy in a university shower. At Sandusky’s trial, McQueary testified that he reported what he had seen to Paterno, Curley and Schultz. Curley and Schultz have said McQueary did not make it clear the act was sexual in nature. Spanier denied knowing the full nature of the assault.
But e-mails between the three men revealed that Spanier, Curley and Schultz had decided in 2001 to confront Sandusky themselves instead of reporting the allegations.
“The only downside for us is if the message isn’t ‘heard’ and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it,” Spanier wrote at the time. The e-mails also included discussion of abuse allegations against Sandusky from 1998. Spanier had testified to a grand jury that he had not been aware of the 1998 allegations.
McQueary testified this week that Paterno had told him that the university botched its response to the Sandusky scandal and warned him that he would be made the scapegoat.
McQueary said Paterno told him, “Old Main screwed up,” referring to the landmark campus building that houses the offices of the president and other administrators.
Curley and Schultz were charged in November 2011, when Sandusky was arrested. Spanier was ousted as president at the time, although he remains a faculty member on administrative leave. Spanier was charged a year later. Now he, too, will stand trial.
Monday, July 29, 2013
MONDROWITZ BEATEN IN JERUSALEM!
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a notorious fake rabbi and child psychologist who fled US arrest warrants for child molestation in 1984, was attacked and beaten by an unknown vigilante assailant last week in Jerusalem, according to cellphone video footage of the incident released.
“Isaac,” a 22-year old American studying in Jerusalem who recorded the scene, asked that his full name not be used and that his voice be altered in the footage.
Isaac, who recognized Mondrowitz from a newspaper report last year in which he was labeled the “Bin Laden of pedophiles,” said he first called out to him by name. “He stopped, turned around and responded ‘yes’ with a heavy New York accent,” Isaac said.
The video begins shortly thereafter with Issac following from a distance, then, loudly, calling Mondrowitz a “molester,” and telling passersby that Mondrowitz ”molested 100 kids in New York.” At that point, an unknown vigilante, who appears to be at least six feet tall and well-built, also apparently recognizing Mondrowitz, grabbed the hat from the fake shrink’s head, beat him with it, then let him escape, briefly, before racing after him, catching up to him, and throwing Mondrowitz to the ground.
The cameraman said he did not know the identity of the assailant nor was he, personally, someone who typically resorted to violence, but the frustrating circumstances surrounding Mondrowitz’s continued freedom from hundreds of accusers made this an occasion where “vigilante justice could be justified.”
Isaac, originally from the New York area, said that he was neither a victim of child abuse nor an activist, but knew many people who had suffered abuse and felt “someone has to do something,” and that he had to “speak up.”
“It’s really upsetting to see this man living freely and openly in this community of Nachlaot, a tight-knit neighborhood, with children everywhere, and apparently he goes to a synagogue, where people need to know who he is and what he’s done,” Isaac said. “It’s just outrageous that someone wanted for these crimes in the US, accused of raping and sodomizing hundreds of kids, has the opportunity to offend again, to commit these heinous acts here, in Israel. I’m a non-confrontational kind of person, but I couldn’t just do nothing, I couldn’t just continue walking. Someone has to do something. I had to speak up.”
“My hope is that by calling him out, by identifying him in the neighborhood, by releasing this video, that people here won’t believe that he’s repented, that he’s been cleared of these accusations. No, his neighbors deserve to know the truth about this evil man, this pedophile, living in their midst,” Isaac said.
Mondrowitz has been living in Israel since skipping out on the New York warrants almost thirty years ago. Twelve hours after he left on a plane for Chicago, then to Canada, then to Israel, NYPD officers entered his Borough Park, Brooklyn, home, after following up on an anonymous tip. They found child pornography and lists of hundreds of names of local boys, many referred to him by Jewish families and children’s services agencies for counseling, the New York Post reported. E-mails on his computer turned over to the FBI also showed that Mondrowitz trolled child-pornography Web sites. “Moshe Rosenbaum, one of the activists who first aired concerns about Mondrowitz in the late 1980s, estimates the number to be 300,” reported Tablet magazine in 2011.
In 1985, Mondrowitz was indicted, in absentia, on four counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree against four Italian-American boys, ages 11 to 16, who also lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood and had agreed to press charges and testify. The same year, the US federal government sought his extradition from Israel, but the treaty between the countries at the time did not cover his crimes. In 1993, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes dropped the deportation effort.
In 2007, the treaty was revised, and Mondrowitz became eligible for extradition. A search of his home in Israel found four child-pornography films, and he was arrested and jailed. But in 2010, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled Mondrowitz was grandfathered and exempt from the revised treaty, and set him free.
At the time, The Jewish Week published selections from a 2006 document allegedly found on Mondrowitz’s computer, which indicates that he was still a threat in Israel, again, posing as a psychologist. In the document he provides a mental health evaluation of a 15-year-old boy, based on in-person interviews, and notes the “hormonal and physical changes in his body.” “Mondrowitz’s name appears at the end of the assessment, followed by the credentials “Ph.D., L.N.H.A.” (Licensed Nursing Home Administrator)” reported The Jewish Week further. On a resume obtained by the paper Mondrowitz claimed to have received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1977 from “Teachers College, Colombia [sic] University,” but a NYPD detective told Israeli daily Haaretz in 2007 that all of his diplomas, including his rabbinic ordination, were “fakes.”
Last year, the New York Post published a photo of Mondrowitz, dressed similarly to how he appears in the new video, wearing religious garb, as well as tefilin, a tallis and carrying his fedora, near his apartment on Yizreel Street, in Nachlaot. The photo sparked outrage as proof that the alleged child molester was living freely in Israel, while many young men who claimed to be his victims still suffered many years later from harrowing physical and mental abuse.
Mark Appel, Director of Voice of Justice, a non-profit that works with child abuse victims in the Orthodox community and lobbies for their rights, said the Mondrowitz case was “truly sickening” and one of the reasons he became involved in the field.
“There were hundreds and hundreds of victims, Jews and non-Jews alike,” Appel told The Algemeiner. “This was the case that really opened up the wounds of society, a major case that energized the movement to get justice for these kids.”
“In the Chasidic community, Mondrowitz was very high-profile; a rabbi, a psychologist, with his own radio show, a very prominent person, who, because of the high esteem everyone had for him, was getting lots of referrals to evaluate even more kids in trouble,” Appel said. “This was in the early 1980s, and I had just begun working with at-risk youth and on early intervention programs, and there was just this very high percentage of kids coming forward; it was as if every second kid were telling us they had been abused. It just didn’t register, until the pieces came together; Mondrowitz was a monster.”
Mark Weiss, at 13 years old, was molested by Mondrowitz. “I would love to see the guy run over by Egged’s finest,” Weiss told The Algemeiner, referring to the drivers of Israel’s largest bus company. “But I just think that even more than seeing Mondrowitz get beaten up, I’d rather see his whole support system, what allowed him to continue for so long, be ‘hit over the head.’ The mentality of irresponsible people that led to his continued ability to roam free is what needs to be assaulted.”
“This is something that we’ve been working very hard on as advocates, and cases are bearing fruit,” Weiss said, adding that “the Charedi (Orthodox) community has been slowly learning to no longer tolerate this, and education has been key.”
“Symbolically, I think the assailant is representative of a bigger thing happening, that this is a form of people showing outrage. Mondrowitz will one day get what’s coming to him, and I’m certainly not in control of that. The random guy getting pissed off and going ahead, assaulting Mondrowitz, that’s good to see, the outrage is starting to show. But Mondrowitz is just symbolic of the problem. We’ve reached a certain critical point where parents are talking to their kids, parents today check the right box, and say the right things to them; we’re not going to tolerate this c*** anymore.”
Jerry Schmetterer, Director of Public Information for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, told The Algemeiner simply, “If Mondrowitz came back to the US, we would arrest him.”
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/07/29/exclusive-%E2%80%98vigilante-justice%E2%80%99-in-jerusalem-avrohom-mondrowitz-fake-rabbi-shrink-alleged-to-have-molested-up-to-300-children-beaten-by-unknown-assailant-video/
When a beloved rabbi is also a child abuser!
Denial is often the Jewish Orthodox community’s first impulse when we hear about abuse committed by rabbis. Why abuse cover-ups happen– and how we can work to prevent them in the future.
A few years ago, I worked with an adolescent boy who had been sexually abused as a child. As part of his therapy and to help him work through the immense shame, self-blame, rage and confusion he felt, we wrote down together his story - what had happened. As we were finishing I asked, “Do you have any questions for me about what happened to you?” He said, “Yes. Why did this happen to me?” I was at a loss for words.
As a psychotherapist who works with traumatized children, I feel profoundly powerless and sad every time I sit with a child who has to face the story of his/her betrayal. How do you explain to a child the depth of the pathology of the perpetrators who shattered his childhood? Or help him believe that not all adults in his life will fail him and that intimacy with the right people is worthwhile?
Yet I know that, in some ways, this was a lucky child, one whose parents heard him and got him help. Many were not so lucky. At Yeshiva University, the adults who failed the children in their care were teachers, rabbis. A lawsuit and complaint filed last week by victims of abuse at YU’s Manhattan High School for Boys, alleges that trusted YU leaders covered up, and thus enabled, horrific abuse for decades, despite repeated requests for help and protection by victims and their families.
Growing up in the Orthodox Jewish community, having attended YU, embracing its values and practicing as a psychotherapist in the Orthodox community, I have struggled to grasp why cover-ups happen and, particularly, how people can stand by and allow abuse to flourish. I believe the answer lies in understanding how people cope in the face of shocking, traumatic information.
When we hear that a child has been abused - especially when the accused is a respected rabbi—our first impulse is often denial. This defense mechanism, identified by Anna Freud, protects us from feeling powerlessness and distress in the face of overwhelmingly painful information. Even parents of victims may initially have this urge to deny a child’s abuse, to avoid devastation and self-blame.
Consider this: How might it feel for you to learn that a close friend was accused of sex crimes against a child? You would be shocked and might have an inclination to defend him/her, at least initially. But then what? Would you ignore the information about his harm to children? If so, what might motivate you to do so? What would it take for you to open your heart and imagine an adolescent boy being brutalized by a trusted adult? Would it have to happen to your child in order for you to connect with the abject terror of this act to a child?
Rabbis and administrators at YU may have felt an impulse to deny allegations against abusers who were also their colleagues. But, as spiritual leaders and educators, they had a moral obligation to investigate reports, which victims allege they repeatedly ignored. Their persistent denial turned innocent boys with great potential into deeply wounded men; this resulted in some leaving their faith, others attempting suicide and/or requiring lifelong psychiatric care. This obligation to acknowledge abuse includes current YU leaders who were approached by victims in recent years and not only did not act until their hand was forced by the Forward’s breaking story, but repeatedly ignored victims’ requests for a response.
Denial is a normal process that evolves through childhood as we mature and learn to make sense of reality. But when a child’s wellbeing is at stake and adults deny and obstruct truth, the impact on children is devastating. We put the rabbi and the institution before the child. We put our own discomfort or agendas ahead of the destruction of a child's whole world. We use arguments such as: “You have to understand, they didn’t know much in those days.” or “Well, it was only wrestling,” or: “It was in the past. Why should that be the current YU administration's issue now?” Our minds create one excuse after another, or blame the victim, in an effort to preserve the goodness in a respected person or institution - or as we have been seeing lately with members of the Orthodox Rabbinate, to preserve their established network of friends.
What motivates the denial? Some leaders have a dangerous inability to differentiate between compassion for a perpetrator’s struggles and excusing their criminal behaviors. Others deny allegations because they deny their own abuse histories or fear that their own indiscretions, sexual or otherwise, could be revealed. For instance, there have been suggestions that several rabbis who still defend a convicted Orthodox child abuser and rabbi were themselves abused by him. Many are protecting their friends and their networks or an institution. Regardless of the reasons, all of these motivations reflect profoundly disturbing gaps in empathy and leadership.
When the story of alleged abuse at YU broke, the Chancellor, Dr. Norman Lamm excused his failures to report allegations by saying, “It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry.” Not destroying a rabbi’s reputation trumped saving hundreds of children from harm.
In Judeo-Christian communities, an important factor to consider is the desperation many of us feel to be “good” and do the “right thing” in “God’s eyes” and in the eyes of others. This urgency can lead to a phobia of anything deemed “bad,” leading us to exclude anything that threatens the image we wish to hold for ourselves or our people. Our compassion for our children gets lost if we act from the fear about how things might “look” and a desire to preserve reputations.
Ironically, by denying our darker sides, we actually become our fears and avoid facing all of who we are: imperfect beings. Trying to live within rigid parameters such as, “I am only a good person or “Rabbis are above reproach!” forces what Carl Jung called “the shadow” and what the Kabbalah calls “Sitra Achra”—the other side— to always backfire on us.
How can we heal our community? By heightening awareness of how denial works and learning to slow down and listen with the most open of hearts when there are allegations. This means we commit to allowing all that we experience within ourselves and towards others when we hear shocking news, possibly noting an initial impulse to deny, even intense discomfort and confusion, but always prioritizing our responsibility to the innocent children entrusted to our care.
We can also heal by accepting that everyone, ourselves included, falls into the grey zone of having both good and bad traits. (This can be particularly challenging in religious communities if members believe that God, too, only sees in black and white.) Someone can be a beloved rabbi and a child molester. Someone can be a respected leader who errs in his choices and requires pressure from his community to do the right thing. We have a difficult time grasping the “and” because it leaves us unable to resolve our wish to put people neatly into categories of “good” or “bad.” We have to instead, hold the space for our discomfort while maintaining the need for accountability for those who have may have committed crimes.
Lastly, for the sake of our beloved children, we must demand more of our future leaders - that they have the capacity for self- reflection, humility and compassion first and foremost for the terror of the sexually abused child.
Stacey Klein, LCSW is a psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan specializing in the treatment of anxiety, OCD and child trauma, and she blogs at "Is There Life After Therapy?" Follow her on Twitter @StaceyKleinLCSW
Stacey Klein, LCSW
Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychotherapy
www.therapyinmanhattan.com
(646) 326-5187
A few years ago, I worked with an adolescent boy who had been sexually abused as a child. As part of his therapy and to help him work through the immense shame, self-blame, rage and confusion he felt, we wrote down together his story - what had happened. As we were finishing I asked, “Do you have any questions for me about what happened to you?” He said, “Yes. Why did this happen to me?” I was at a loss for words.
As a psychotherapist who works with traumatized children, I feel profoundly powerless and sad every time I sit with a child who has to face the story of his/her betrayal. How do you explain to a child the depth of the pathology of the perpetrators who shattered his childhood? Or help him believe that not all adults in his life will fail him and that intimacy with the right people is worthwhile?
Yet I know that, in some ways, this was a lucky child, one whose parents heard him and got him help. Many were not so lucky. At Yeshiva University, the adults who failed the children in their care were teachers, rabbis. A lawsuit and complaint filed last week by victims of abuse at YU’s Manhattan High School for Boys, alleges that trusted YU leaders covered up, and thus enabled, horrific abuse for decades, despite repeated requests for help and protection by victims and their families.
Growing up in the Orthodox Jewish community, having attended YU, embracing its values and practicing as a psychotherapist in the Orthodox community, I have struggled to grasp why cover-ups happen and, particularly, how people can stand by and allow abuse to flourish. I believe the answer lies in understanding how people cope in the face of shocking, traumatic information.
When we hear that a child has been abused - especially when the accused is a respected rabbi—our first impulse is often denial. This defense mechanism, identified by Anna Freud, protects us from feeling powerlessness and distress in the face of overwhelmingly painful information. Even parents of victims may initially have this urge to deny a child’s abuse, to avoid devastation and self-blame.
Consider this: How might it feel for you to learn that a close friend was accused of sex crimes against a child? You would be shocked and might have an inclination to defend him/her, at least initially. But then what? Would you ignore the information about his harm to children? If so, what might motivate you to do so? What would it take for you to open your heart and imagine an adolescent boy being brutalized by a trusted adult? Would it have to happen to your child in order for you to connect with the abject terror of this act to a child?
Rabbis and administrators at YU may have felt an impulse to deny allegations against abusers who were also their colleagues. But, as spiritual leaders and educators, they had a moral obligation to investigate reports, which victims allege they repeatedly ignored. Their persistent denial turned innocent boys with great potential into deeply wounded men; this resulted in some leaving their faith, others attempting suicide and/or requiring lifelong psychiatric care. This obligation to acknowledge abuse includes current YU leaders who were approached by victims in recent years and not only did not act until their hand was forced by the Forward’s breaking story, but repeatedly ignored victims’ requests for a response.
Denial is a normal process that evolves through childhood as we mature and learn to make sense of reality. But when a child’s wellbeing is at stake and adults deny and obstruct truth, the impact on children is devastating. We put the rabbi and the institution before the child. We put our own discomfort or agendas ahead of the destruction of a child's whole world. We use arguments such as: “You have to understand, they didn’t know much in those days.” or “Well, it was only wrestling,” or: “It was in the past. Why should that be the current YU administration's issue now?” Our minds create one excuse after another, or blame the victim, in an effort to preserve the goodness in a respected person or institution - or as we have been seeing lately with members of the Orthodox Rabbinate, to preserve their established network of friends.
What motivates the denial? Some leaders have a dangerous inability to differentiate between compassion for a perpetrator’s struggles and excusing their criminal behaviors. Others deny allegations because they deny their own abuse histories or fear that their own indiscretions, sexual or otherwise, could be revealed. For instance, there have been suggestions that several rabbis who still defend a convicted Orthodox child abuser and rabbi were themselves abused by him. Many are protecting their friends and their networks or an institution. Regardless of the reasons, all of these motivations reflect profoundly disturbing gaps in empathy and leadership.
When the story of alleged abuse at YU broke, the Chancellor, Dr. Norman Lamm excused his failures to report allegations by saying, “It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry.” Not destroying a rabbi’s reputation trumped saving hundreds of children from harm.
In Judeo-Christian communities, an important factor to consider is the desperation many of us feel to be “good” and do the “right thing” in “God’s eyes” and in the eyes of others. This urgency can lead to a phobia of anything deemed “bad,” leading us to exclude anything that threatens the image we wish to hold for ourselves or our people. Our compassion for our children gets lost if we act from the fear about how things might “look” and a desire to preserve reputations.
Ironically, by denying our darker sides, we actually become our fears and avoid facing all of who we are: imperfect beings. Trying to live within rigid parameters such as, “I am only a good person or “Rabbis are above reproach!” forces what Carl Jung called “the shadow” and what the Kabbalah calls “Sitra Achra”—the other side— to always backfire on us.
How can we heal our community? By heightening awareness of how denial works and learning to slow down and listen with the most open of hearts when there are allegations. This means we commit to allowing all that we experience within ourselves and towards others when we hear shocking news, possibly noting an initial impulse to deny, even intense discomfort and confusion, but always prioritizing our responsibility to the innocent children entrusted to our care.
We can also heal by accepting that everyone, ourselves included, falls into the grey zone of having both good and bad traits. (This can be particularly challenging in religious communities if members believe that God, too, only sees in black and white.) Someone can be a beloved rabbi and a child molester. Someone can be a respected leader who errs in his choices and requires pressure from his community to do the right thing. We have a difficult time grasping the “and” because it leaves us unable to resolve our wish to put people neatly into categories of “good” or “bad.” We have to instead, hold the space for our discomfort while maintaining the need for accountability for those who have may have committed crimes.
Lastly, for the sake of our beloved children, we must demand more of our future leaders - that they have the capacity for self- reflection, humility and compassion first and foremost for the terror of the sexually abused child.
Stacey Klein, LCSW is a psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan specializing in the treatment of anxiety, OCD and child trauma, and she blogs at "Is There Life After Therapy?" Follow her on Twitter @StaceyKleinLCSW
Stacey Klein, LCSW
Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychotherapy
www.therapyinmanhattan.com
(646) 326-5187
Friday, July 26, 2013
The Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Enable!
I could not believe my eyes.
I was a young prosecutor handling night court arraignments. Basically, I was formally accusing each defendant of a crime and then asking for bail. The courtroom that night was packed with Hasidim, each one trying to get my attention. And, then, I found out why. Next up?
A 23-year-old yeshiva student accused of sexually abusing his 10-year- old nephew.
The audience included his family, friends, rabbis, teachers, neighbors and community leaders, each calling me over with a pssst. They all wanted to press me for the release of the defendant. The message was the same; the approach subtly different. Some appealed to my Jewish sounding name. Others wanted me to know that my unborn children would never marry if I did not consent to the defendant’s release. A couple of people cursed me. Some implied that my career as a prosecutor would meet an untimely death if I did not “do the right thing.”
I had to make some phone calls.
And, then word came down from the top. No special favors. No deviation from the bail guidelines. I asked for, and received, an un-meetable bail. Yaakov was spending Shavuot in the hoosegow. But, I was not satisfied.
I wanted to indict everyone in the room as a co-conspirator.
A few years earlier, my best friend asked me to testify before a beit din brought by Baruch Lanner.My friend was being accused of defamation for alerting the public to Lanner’s sexual and physical abuse of children. I had some information and agreed to testify. And, then the phone calls began—rabbis, friends, people of influence imploring me not to appear before the tribunal. I didn’t care. I was determined. Then, I was told that one of my high school teachers would be sitting at Lanner’s table and would discredit me in a way that had proven extremely successful in discrediting other witnesses. He had the goods on me since I had been a well-documented troublemaker in school. Of course, disrupting history class should have no impact on the veracity of my testimony, but the warning was clear: I would do more damage than good to the case. And, in a decision that has since landed on the list of my top two lifetime regrets, I withdrew from the beit din.
My friend lost and had to apologize publically to a monster. I have never recovered from my disloyalty and cowardice. He died young.
These long-suppressed memories clawed their way back into my consciousness in recent months as the Jewish community has been rocked with a series of sex abuse scandals. I do not have much to say about the alleged abusers. They are defective and need permanent supervision. Here’s why: science confirms that they will never be cured. Even if physically restrained, their inclinations cannot be controlled. Are they capable of repentance and t’shuva? I don’t know, but I suggest that anyone who claims to know the answer to that question has an agenda. God alone knows what is inside our hearts. Lanner was among the most charismatic showmen in modern Jewish history. Only those who supported and loved him through his crimes and tribulations are ready to declare him repentant. And, you will excuse me if I am skeptical of their bias.
But, there is a special place in hell for those among us who condone, excuse, facilitate, or ignore the physical or sexual abuse of our children. And, the penthouse of that place is reserved for anyone tasked with educating and protecting children but who dare place the interests of the abusers over young putative victims. What’s that? You don’t want to offend the convicted pedophile? Don’t want to embarrass him? You’re ready to accept his half-witted declarations of regret and t’shuva? You credit his contributions to society and Judaism?
Here’s the thing. You are ten levels worse than the pedophile. You know why? Because he likely cannot help himself. He is sick and demented. You, however, are a misguided enabler of sexual abuse. You are a far greater threat to my children than any abuser because you lend credibility and mitigation to his misdeeds. Your message is that he can be forgiven and forgotten. But, you have no right to make that declaration, not only because you are not a victim, but because you have no basis for your opinion other than your relationship to the abuser or your liberal acceptance of any semblance of repentance.
I am not a victim so I would never presume to speak on anyone’s behalf. But before I can accept the public embrace of a known abuser, before I normalize relations with someone who has left a path of destroyed lives in his wake, I would like to hear a public apology; a credible acknowledgment of the horrors wreaked upon the innocent. I would like to hear from the victims to discover if any actual attempts were made by their abuser at legitimate repentance. I would like to know that there has been real progress in therapy. Finally, I would insist on knowing what efforts have been made to contribute in a meaningful way to the community, and have the abused been helped in any way. But, hey, that’s just me.
The tragedy of the Lanner story is not Lanner. It is of a beit din, a youth organization, a yeshiva high school, a national orthodox organization, a school psychologist, a troupe of loyal rabbis (some are still teaching in the yeshiva system) and many others who enabled 10 more years of victims and who, today, are nobly ready to let bygones be bygones. Some, like the OU, have taken steps to change the way they do business in a nod to the outrage and cycle of mistrust. But, others continue to facilitate and enable the abusers, to the detriment of the victims and potential victims. If you think I am talking about any specific person, you are wrong. But, here’s my thinking. If the choice is between forgiveness and compassion, on the one hand, or ultra-vigilant protection of our children, on the other hand, I land on the side of the children every single time. Let God forgive the pedophiles. Let their families and friends support them.
But if I am entrusting my children to you, I want to know that there are no circumstances, no excuses, no justifications that will lead you to err on the side of the abuser.
Ari Weisbrot is a prominent litigator in New York and New Jersey, and moonlights as an occasional writer. You can find his popular blog at ariweisbrot.com -- Ari grew up in Teaneck and lives in New Milford.
http://www.jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1185:the-eleventh-commandment-thou-shalt-not-enable&catid=155:op-eds&Itemid=567
I was a young prosecutor handling night court arraignments. Basically, I was formally accusing each defendant of a crime and then asking for bail. The courtroom that night was packed with Hasidim, each one trying to get my attention. And, then, I found out why. Next up?
A 23-year-old yeshiva student accused of sexually abusing his 10-year- old nephew.
The audience included his family, friends, rabbis, teachers, neighbors and community leaders, each calling me over with a pssst. They all wanted to press me for the release of the defendant. The message was the same; the approach subtly different. Some appealed to my Jewish sounding name. Others wanted me to know that my unborn children would never marry if I did not consent to the defendant’s release. A couple of people cursed me. Some implied that my career as a prosecutor would meet an untimely death if I did not “do the right thing.”
I had to make some phone calls.
And, then word came down from the top. No special favors. No deviation from the bail guidelines. I asked for, and received, an un-meetable bail. Yaakov was spending Shavuot in the hoosegow. But, I was not satisfied.
I wanted to indict everyone in the room as a co-conspirator.
A few years earlier, my best friend asked me to testify before a beit din brought by Baruch Lanner.My friend was being accused of defamation for alerting the public to Lanner’s sexual and physical abuse of children. I had some information and agreed to testify. And, then the phone calls began—rabbis, friends, people of influence imploring me not to appear before the tribunal. I didn’t care. I was determined. Then, I was told that one of my high school teachers would be sitting at Lanner’s table and would discredit me in a way that had proven extremely successful in discrediting other witnesses. He had the goods on me since I had been a well-documented troublemaker in school. Of course, disrupting history class should have no impact on the veracity of my testimony, but the warning was clear: I would do more damage than good to the case. And, in a decision that has since landed on the list of my top two lifetime regrets, I withdrew from the beit din.
My friend lost and had to apologize publically to a monster. I have never recovered from my disloyalty and cowardice. He died young.
These long-suppressed memories clawed their way back into my consciousness in recent months as the Jewish community has been rocked with a series of sex abuse scandals. I do not have much to say about the alleged abusers. They are defective and need permanent supervision. Here’s why: science confirms that they will never be cured. Even if physically restrained, their inclinations cannot be controlled. Are they capable of repentance and t’shuva? I don’t know, but I suggest that anyone who claims to know the answer to that question has an agenda. God alone knows what is inside our hearts. Lanner was among the most charismatic showmen in modern Jewish history. Only those who supported and loved him through his crimes and tribulations are ready to declare him repentant. And, you will excuse me if I am skeptical of their bias.
But, there is a special place in hell for those among us who condone, excuse, facilitate, or ignore the physical or sexual abuse of our children. And, the penthouse of that place is reserved for anyone tasked with educating and protecting children but who dare place the interests of the abusers over young putative victims. What’s that? You don’t want to offend the convicted pedophile? Don’t want to embarrass him? You’re ready to accept his half-witted declarations of regret and t’shuva? You credit his contributions to society and Judaism?
Here’s the thing. You are ten levels worse than the pedophile. You know why? Because he likely cannot help himself. He is sick and demented. You, however, are a misguided enabler of sexual abuse. You are a far greater threat to my children than any abuser because you lend credibility and mitigation to his misdeeds. Your message is that he can be forgiven and forgotten. But, you have no right to make that declaration, not only because you are not a victim, but because you have no basis for your opinion other than your relationship to the abuser or your liberal acceptance of any semblance of repentance.
I am not a victim so I would never presume to speak on anyone’s behalf. But before I can accept the public embrace of a known abuser, before I normalize relations with someone who has left a path of destroyed lives in his wake, I would like to hear a public apology; a credible acknowledgment of the horrors wreaked upon the innocent. I would like to hear from the victims to discover if any actual attempts were made by their abuser at legitimate repentance. I would like to know that there has been real progress in therapy. Finally, I would insist on knowing what efforts have been made to contribute in a meaningful way to the community, and have the abused been helped in any way. But, hey, that’s just me.
The tragedy of the Lanner story is not Lanner. It is of a beit din, a youth organization, a yeshiva high school, a national orthodox organization, a school psychologist, a troupe of loyal rabbis (some are still teaching in the yeshiva system) and many others who enabled 10 more years of victims and who, today, are nobly ready to let bygones be bygones. Some, like the OU, have taken steps to change the way they do business in a nod to the outrage and cycle of mistrust. But, others continue to facilitate and enable the abusers, to the detriment of the victims and potential victims. If you think I am talking about any specific person, you are wrong. But, here’s my thinking. If the choice is between forgiveness and compassion, on the one hand, or ultra-vigilant protection of our children, on the other hand, I land on the side of the children every single time. Let God forgive the pedophiles. Let their families and friends support them.
But if I am entrusting my children to you, I want to know that there are no circumstances, no excuses, no justifications that will lead you to err on the side of the abuser.
Ari Weisbrot is a prominent litigator in New York and New Jersey, and moonlights as an occasional writer. You can find his popular blog at ariweisbrot.com -- Ari grew up in Teaneck and lives in New Milford.
http://www.jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1185:the-eleventh-commandment-thou-shalt-not-enable&catid=155:op-eds&Itemid=567
Clerical Sexual Abuse Among Catholics and Jews: Comparisons and Contrasts
Guest Contributor: Shalom Goldman, Duke University
Many Catholics in the US and overseas are hoping that the new Pope, Francis I, will help heal the wounds inflicted on the Church by the sexual abuse scandals of the past few decades. And many Catholic victims of clerical sexual abuse, while reminding us that their wounds are deep and permanent, see a healing of the Church as a necessary component of their individual recoveries.
Moral outrage about clerical abuse is directed not only at the abusers but also at those in the Church hierarchy who have covered up the abuse. But the damage to Church institutions is more than moral; lawsuits and the resulting awards and settlements threaten to bankrupt many a diocese. Particularly egregious was the behavior of the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, who, along with other Church officials, worked assiduously to cover up many cases of clerical abuse. In the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, when abusive priests came to the cardinal’s attention, he arranged to have them reassigned, and in some cases the priest was reassigned to a diocese in which he would again be working with children.
The Church hierarchy’s inability to confront the reality of the actual sexual lives of both clergy and laity is today glaringly apparent. The great majority of American Catholics do not follow the Church’s dictates on birth control. And the Church’s blanket condemnation of homosexuality is out of sync with changing American values (see, for example, recent polls on gay marriage.) To some extent, the Church is reacting to these trends. But its reactions are slow and ponderous. Bishop Timothy Dolan of New York, whose name came up on many short lists of papabili (those considered for elevation to the Papacy), recently called on Catholics to adopt a more inclusive and compassionate approach to their gay co-religionists. In addition, a growing number of American Catholics are calling for the elimination of a celibate priesthood. Beyond that issue, some scholars of Catholicism, like Gary Wills in his recent book (Why Priests?), are calling for a thorough reconsideration and reevaluation of the priesthood.
But Catholics are not the only American religious minority beset by clergy sexual scandals and by conflicts between hierarchy and laity. As Mark Oppenheimer noted in a New York Times article last month, no American religious group seems free of sexual scandal.
A group that has been particularly hard hit with scandals this past year is the Orthodox Jewish community in its many forms. Just as ninety percent of American Catholics reject Church teachings on birth control, over ninety percent of American Jews (who either belong to Conservative or Reform congregations or are unaffiliated) reject Rabbinic Judaism’s teachings about the regulation of sexual behavior, especially when it comes to “family purity.” This euphemism refers to abstinence from sexual activity during a woman’s period—and at least a week beyond it. In Orthodox Jewish law men are forbidden all physical contact with their wives during a woman’s extended period of “menstrual impurity.” Thus many Orthodox households, and all Ultra-Orthodox households, have “separate beds” in the bedroom—so that the couple can sleep together, or apart, as the woman’s menstrual cycle determines.
It is within these same Jewish communities that consider themselves bound by such laws that sexual abuse scandals have recently come to light. The variety and magnitude of these scandals, though on a scale far smaller than those in the Catholic Church, have sent shockwaves through the Jewish world. What the results will be is hard to predict. For, unlike Roman Catholics, Jewish religious communities are not unified in their religious rules, behaviors, or attitudes. Rather, they are divided, contentious and famously argumentative. Behind the headlines of recent sexual scandals there have been some strange synchronicities between the Catholic and Jewish incidents.
On the same day in late 2012 that the charges against Bishop Mahoney were detailed in a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles archdiocese, a State Supreme Court Judge in New York sentenced Nechemya Weberman, a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, to the attention-getting sentence of 103 years in prison. Weberman’s victim, an eighteen-year-old Hasidic woman whom he had been abusing for six years (under the pretext of being her “therapist”) had implored the judge to impose the maximum sentence. He fulfilled her request.
In the six years that she was abused, this Hasidic young woman did not remain silent about her situation; she complained to family members and school authorities. But she could not break through the wall of silence imposed by her ultra-Orthodox family, school, synagogue, and community. State Supreme Court Justice John C. Ingram praised the victim’s “courage and bravery in coming forward.” Sadly, though, the perpetrator’s and victim’s own community, the Satmar Hasidim of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryat Yoel, New York, have not displayed the same courage and bravery in confronting abusers in their midst. To the contrary, like their Catholic clerical counterparts, they have tried to keep the lid on news of this and other emerging scandals.
That sexual abuse could be hidden, and news of it suppressed, within the Satmar Hasidim (American Judaism’s most separatist community) is not that surprising, since most of its members have little contact with the outside world.
A much greater scandal erupted when – a few months after the revelations about Weberman the Ultra-Orthodox “therapist” – a pattern of sexual abuse, deception and cover-up at Yeshiva University was revealed. YU is the flagship institution of Modern Orthodox Judaism. Reports of abuse were revealed to the press by an intrepid journalist and activist, Mordechai Twersky. Now living in Israel, Twersky was himself abused while at the Yeshiva high school—and he had been petitioning YU’s leaders to address the issue for over a decade. It seems that his patience finally ran out.
In contrast to the separatist and anti-modern tendencies of the Satmar Hasidim, the Orthodox Jews affiliated with Yeshiva University pride themselves on their openness to modernity. YU’s motto is Torah Umada—Torah and Science—an explicit embrace of both tradition and modernity. One would expect that a community that fully embraced modernity would be able to face such revelations in a direct and rational manner.
The revelations about Yeshiva University concern rabbis and male students at Manhattan Talmudic Academy, the boys’ high school affiliated with Yeshiva University.
These young men (close to forty cases have emerged to date) had been abused by their teachers in the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties.
The Y.U. case came to public attention in December 2012 when the New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, broke the story. In that same period, stories about covered-up cases of sexual abuse at prep schools—Horace Mann and Deerfield, among others—appeared in the press. Forward journalist Paul Berger reported that “Yeshiva University for years ignored students who claimed that they were sexually abused by two former staff members at Y.U.’s high school for boys in Manhattan.”
While many American Catholics now seem open to criticism of their own communities, and of their clergy, no matter how elevated the status of the clergyman, spokespersons for Jewish communities, reluctant to wash their laundry in public, have been fiercely protective of clergy and teachers.
The Forward has been descrying the reluctance of Y.U. faculty and students to demand action by their university. This past month a graduate of Y.U. called on the school chancellor, Rabbi Norman Lamm, to resign. But Lamm is not only the university’s chancellor, he is also its Rosh Yeshiva, the institution’s spiritual leader. Voices calling for Lamm’s resignation, though, are few; for the most part, the Modern Orthodox Jewish community has been silent. Of the thousands of Y.U. graduates appealed to in an email petition, only 250 were willing to hold the university leadership accountable.
Both Catholics and Jews are minorities within the United States (Catholics forming one-quarter of the U.S. population, and Jews two percent). Members of both religious communities have confronted religious prejudice in Protestant America. Yet it seems that the smaller the minority, the more protective its reputation and leadership.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionnow/2013/05/clerical-sexual-abuse-among-catholics-and-jews-comparisons-and-contrasts/
Many Catholics in the US and overseas are hoping that the new Pope, Francis I, will help heal the wounds inflicted on the Church by the sexual abuse scandals of the past few decades. And many Catholic victims of clerical sexual abuse, while reminding us that their wounds are deep and permanent, see a healing of the Church as a necessary component of their individual recoveries.
Moral outrage about clerical abuse is directed not only at the abusers but also at those in the Church hierarchy who have covered up the abuse. But the damage to Church institutions is more than moral; lawsuits and the resulting awards and settlements threaten to bankrupt many a diocese. Particularly egregious was the behavior of the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, who, along with other Church officials, worked assiduously to cover up many cases of clerical abuse. In the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, when abusive priests came to the cardinal’s attention, he arranged to have them reassigned, and in some cases the priest was reassigned to a diocese in which he would again be working with children.
The Church hierarchy’s inability to confront the reality of the actual sexual lives of both clergy and laity is today glaringly apparent. The great majority of American Catholics do not follow the Church’s dictates on birth control. And the Church’s blanket condemnation of homosexuality is out of sync with changing American values (see, for example, recent polls on gay marriage.) To some extent, the Church is reacting to these trends. But its reactions are slow and ponderous. Bishop Timothy Dolan of New York, whose name came up on many short lists of papabili (those considered for elevation to the Papacy), recently called on Catholics to adopt a more inclusive and compassionate approach to their gay co-religionists. In addition, a growing number of American Catholics are calling for the elimination of a celibate priesthood. Beyond that issue, some scholars of Catholicism, like Gary Wills in his recent book (Why Priests?), are calling for a thorough reconsideration and reevaluation of the priesthood.
But Catholics are not the only American religious minority beset by clergy sexual scandals and by conflicts between hierarchy and laity. As Mark Oppenheimer noted in a New York Times article last month, no American religious group seems free of sexual scandal.
A group that has been particularly hard hit with scandals this past year is the Orthodox Jewish community in its many forms. Just as ninety percent of American Catholics reject Church teachings on birth control, over ninety percent of American Jews (who either belong to Conservative or Reform congregations or are unaffiliated) reject Rabbinic Judaism’s teachings about the regulation of sexual behavior, especially when it comes to “family purity.” This euphemism refers to abstinence from sexual activity during a woman’s period—and at least a week beyond it. In Orthodox Jewish law men are forbidden all physical contact with their wives during a woman’s extended period of “menstrual impurity.” Thus many Orthodox households, and all Ultra-Orthodox households, have “separate beds” in the bedroom—so that the couple can sleep together, or apart, as the woman’s menstrual cycle determines.
It is within these same Jewish communities that consider themselves bound by such laws that sexual abuse scandals have recently come to light. The variety and magnitude of these scandals, though on a scale far smaller than those in the Catholic Church, have sent shockwaves through the Jewish world. What the results will be is hard to predict. For, unlike Roman Catholics, Jewish religious communities are not unified in their religious rules, behaviors, or attitudes. Rather, they are divided, contentious and famously argumentative. Behind the headlines of recent sexual scandals there have been some strange synchronicities between the Catholic and Jewish incidents.
On the same day in late 2012 that the charges against Bishop Mahoney were detailed in a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles archdiocese, a State Supreme Court Judge in New York sentenced Nechemya Weberman, a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, to the attention-getting sentence of 103 years in prison. Weberman’s victim, an eighteen-year-old Hasidic woman whom he had been abusing for six years (under the pretext of being her “therapist”) had implored the judge to impose the maximum sentence. He fulfilled her request.
In the six years that she was abused, this Hasidic young woman did not remain silent about her situation; she complained to family members and school authorities. But she could not break through the wall of silence imposed by her ultra-Orthodox family, school, synagogue, and community. State Supreme Court Justice John C. Ingram praised the victim’s “courage and bravery in coming forward.” Sadly, though, the perpetrator’s and victim’s own community, the Satmar Hasidim of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryat Yoel, New York, have not displayed the same courage and bravery in confronting abusers in their midst. To the contrary, like their Catholic clerical counterparts, they have tried to keep the lid on news of this and other emerging scandals.
That sexual abuse could be hidden, and news of it suppressed, within the Satmar Hasidim (American Judaism’s most separatist community) is not that surprising, since most of its members have little contact with the outside world.
A much greater scandal erupted when – a few months after the revelations about Weberman the Ultra-Orthodox “therapist” – a pattern of sexual abuse, deception and cover-up at Yeshiva University was revealed. YU is the flagship institution of Modern Orthodox Judaism. Reports of abuse were revealed to the press by an intrepid journalist and activist, Mordechai Twersky. Now living in Israel, Twersky was himself abused while at the Yeshiva high school—and he had been petitioning YU’s leaders to address the issue for over a decade. It seems that his patience finally ran out.
In contrast to the separatist and anti-modern tendencies of the Satmar Hasidim, the Orthodox Jews affiliated with Yeshiva University pride themselves on their openness to modernity. YU’s motto is Torah Umada—Torah and Science—an explicit embrace of both tradition and modernity. One would expect that a community that fully embraced modernity would be able to face such revelations in a direct and rational manner.
The revelations about Yeshiva University concern rabbis and male students at Manhattan Talmudic Academy, the boys’ high school affiliated with Yeshiva University.
These young men (close to forty cases have emerged to date) had been abused by their teachers in the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties.
The Y.U. case came to public attention in December 2012 when the New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, broke the story. In that same period, stories about covered-up cases of sexual abuse at prep schools—Horace Mann and Deerfield, among others—appeared in the press. Forward journalist Paul Berger reported that “Yeshiva University for years ignored students who claimed that they were sexually abused by two former staff members at Y.U.’s high school for boys in Manhattan.”
While many American Catholics now seem open to criticism of their own communities, and of their clergy, no matter how elevated the status of the clergyman, spokespersons for Jewish communities, reluctant to wash their laundry in public, have been fiercely protective of clergy and teachers.
The Forward has been descrying the reluctance of Y.U. faculty and students to demand action by their university. This past month a graduate of Y.U. called on the school chancellor, Rabbi Norman Lamm, to resign. But Lamm is not only the university’s chancellor, he is also its Rosh Yeshiva, the institution’s spiritual leader. Voices calling for Lamm’s resignation, though, are few; for the most part, the Modern Orthodox Jewish community has been silent. Of the thousands of Y.U. graduates appealed to in an email petition, only 250 were willing to hold the university leadership accountable.
Both Catholics and Jews are minorities within the United States (Catholics forming one-quarter of the U.S. population, and Jews two percent). Members of both religious communities have confronted religious prejudice in Protestant America. Yet it seems that the smaller the minority, the more protective its reputation and leadership.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionnow/2013/05/clerical-sexual-abuse-among-catholics-and-jews-comparisons-and-contrasts/
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