Why more reports of rabbinic sex abuse are a good thing
As the Bronx District Attorney opens an investigation into Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, experts say lifting the shroud of silence is key to raising awareness and eliminating the problem of clergy misdeeds
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| Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt. |
THE TENDLER CURSE!
( MUST READ) http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2008/06/tendler-phenomena.html
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| ARON TENDLER |
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| Sholom Tendler |
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| Mordecai Tendler |
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| DOVID WEINBERGER |
On Friday, Rosenblatt, for over 30 years the rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center Synagogue, was the topic of a lengthy New York Times article portraying
his decades-long allegedly inappropriate behavior with young unclothed
males. The article described how Rosenblatt would invite boys as young
as 12 to play squash, followed by bathing and a sauna.
Some of those involved, now men, claimed the
rabbi gawked at their nakedness; others weren’t bothered at all. But
what is clear from the NY Times article and follow-up media pieces is
that Rosenblatt’s questionable behavior over the past three decades was
an open secret that left many boys and young men uncomfortable.
Now, the Bronx District Attorney is calling
upon these men to describe their experiences — even anonymously — and
aid in charting the rabbi’s behavior patterns.
This simple step — the on-record recounting of
an uncomfortable encounter — is a key step to ending abuse, say
activists. The more light is shed on irregular or abusive experiences,
the greater is the deterrent for perpetrators.
There is evidence of the beginnings of change,
say experts, as social media and online survivor communities provide
anonymous or nonthreatening platforms for survivors to testify. And,
they predict numbers of incidents in the clergy will wane as rabbinical
seminaries take increased screening precautions and institute mental
health formation as part of the student rabbis’ training.
There is hope that as victims are empowered to
stand up and be counted, bad apples will be weeded out early — and
those very human rabbis who do find themselves inclined to engage in
suspect behavior will increasingly have places to turn to for help.
Something rotten in the rabbinate?
With increasing regularity, decades-old cases
involving suspected clergy abuse are surfacing in the media because,
according to abuse activists, it can take survivors that long to be able
to recount suspicious or abusive episodes. Sometimes it involves
overcoming shame, in other cases the rabbi is enshrined on such a high
pedestal by the congregation that the victim fears he won’t be believed.
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| Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt |
It was only recently that the Rosenblatt case
began to be discussed somewhat openly, in an alumni message board for a
Jewish foundation. However, reports from disturbed congregants and
students had come before the Modern Orthodox Riverdale Jewish Center Synagogue‘s
leadership as early as the 1980s, according to the NY Times article. By
the 2000s, Rosenblatt’s alma mater Yeshiva University, which deploys
student interns, and the Rabbinical Council of America, his umbrella organization, had asked Rosenblatt to desist.
Additionally, in an editorial Tuesday called “Riverdale’s ‘Open Secret’ Goes Public,”
The Jewish Week’s Gary Rosenblatt wrote that three years ago several
prominent synagogue members offered to buy out Rosenblatt’s contract to
preempt a press scandal. The rabbi declined, but did agree to leave for a
sabbatical at Harvard.
No unusual activity was reported by Jewish
leadership to authorities outside the Jewish community. (An email to
Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of
America and the founder of JSafe, an organization that fights domestic
violence and child abuse in the Jewish community, was not answered.)
The Rosenblatt case is just one in a rash of long-term suspected clergy abuse cases recently capturing international headlines. Others include February’s graphic testimony of child sex abuse in Chabad schools during Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and the May conviction of Rabbi Barry Freundel, sentenced to 6.5 years for 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism in Washington, DC.
With a shroud of shame over victims, and a
history of institutionalized communal cover-ups, there are no reliable
statistics that portray how prevalent abuse is in Jewish communities.
Some experts estimate that it is in line with statistics in the general
population, in which 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men are abused by age 18.
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| BEN HIRSCH |
Jewish abuse activist Ben Hirsch, director of the Brooklyn-based Orthodox sex abuse organization Survivors for Justice, said in a 2013 Vice report exploring clergy abuse that by his estimates 50% of the ultra-Orthodox community has experienced such abuse.
Melbourne-based
members of the Groner family apologize for their father, former senior
rabbi and director of the Yeshivah Centre, Rabbi Dovid Groner’s part in
the cover-up of sexual abuse.
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| Dr. Michael J. Salamon |
Dr. Michael J. Salamon is a New York psychologist affiliated with several Jewish survivor organizations, including the controversial Jewish Community Watch,
which displays a Wall of Shame of alleged perpetrators. He works with
victims of abuse from all faiths, and said there is no clinical evidence
that there are more abuse cases in Orthodoxy. He said, however, there
are fewer cases reported from insular communities than the general
population.
‘People who have the propensity to abuse seek positions of power’
Additionally, abusers are not statistically
more likely to appear in the rabbinate than any other profession,
Salamon said. However, “people who have the propensity to abuse seek
positions of power,” including the clergy, education, and medicine. Some
80% of abusers were abused themselves.
In Salamon’s 2011 book, “Abuse
in the Jewish Community: Religious and Communal Factors that Undermine
the Apprehension of Offenders and the Treatment of Victims,” he
writes there are four basic types of abuse: verbal, emotional, physical
and sexual, or a combination. All involve psychological manipulation.
“In order to be an abuser, regardless of the type of abuse that you
employ, you have to create a willing victim.”
“Those with certain personality types have
this need to victimize,” said Salamon in a phone conversation from his
New York clinic. The perpetrator will put himself in a position where he
feels in control of others and their emotions and “somehow have them
feel like they were dependent upon him.”
While the details in the Rosenblatt case are
still murky — most of the alleged recent activity took place with males
over age 18 and there was little or no touching involved — like the
Freundel case, most of the suspicions surrounding Rosenblatt allege
voyeuristic behavior.
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| Rabbi Barry Freundel |
According to Salamon, “voyeuristic abuse is a
form of psychopathology” that is acknowledged as a disorder by mental
health experts and can cause the same psychological effects as physical
abuse.
Author Elana Sztokman, the former head of the
Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, published op-eds railing against
widespread belittling of Freundel’s abuse as “just voyeurism” during his
sentencing.
‘The rabbi is saying, “I own you, I am consuming you with my eyes”‘
“When we think about clergy acting out sexual
abuse, we’re looking at a pattern of men… who need to assert their power
over others, be more powerful, use their subjects, our kids, as objects
in their sort of need to assert power,” she said in a conversation from
her Israel home this week.
“Voyeurism is a huge emotional violation, but
sometimes we don’t have the language to talk about it. There is no
violence, no touch, but really the essence of sexual abuse is the
ultimate manipulation of power and control. The rabbi is saying, ‘I own
you, I am consuming you with my eyes,'” said Sztokman.
Efforts toward prevention
Yeshivot and rabbinical schools try to weed
out this personality, said abuse activist Salamon, but there are no good
screening tools yet. He added that many yeshivot do a search through a
private investigator firm to determine whether the individual has any
questionable history of abuse.
“Some do, more need to,” qualified Salamon.
‘The Jewish community has no single hierarchy or unifying infrastructure that enables it to set standards for training or to hold professionals responsible in these areas’
As written on RCA head Rabbi Dratch’s JSafe website,
“The problems of domestic violence and child abuse in the Jewish
community are difficult to address for many reasons, foremost among them
are the absence of standards and organization… The problem is systemic.
The Jewish community has no single hierarchy or unifying infrastructure
that enables it to set standards for training or to hold professionals
responsible in these areas.”
One rabbinical school that has already created
an institutionalized approach toward prevention, however, is New York’s
Riverdale-based Modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) in its
pastoral counseling and mental health program, directed by psychiatrist
Dr. Michelle Friedman with the assistance of Miriam Schacter, a licensed
clinical social worker.
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| Rabbi Asher Lopatin |
According to YCT president Rabbi Asher
Lopatin, “Sexual abuse is discussed in terms of the students’ current
environment and also when they go into their professional fields.” In
the pastoral counseling program, students are taught through role
playing “to be aware of boundary violations and misuse of power.”
“Judaism long ago recognized the importance of
modesty, valuing the human dignity of each person. Rabbis must be at
the forefront of understanding and advocating for people never to be put
in situations where they feel there is sexual discomfort or abuse of
power,” said Lopatin.
In an early morning phone conversation from
Italy, pastoral counseling chair Friedman explained in layman’s terms
that “it’s pretty hard to screen out malignant sociopathy… people who
have a deviance conceal it very well.” But she emphasized the school has
set in place a system of gates, including group interviews for
character, not academic prowess, that always include at least one woman.
Additionally, as part of the rabbinical
students’ professional formation, YCT has a required weekly small group
meeting with mental health professionals over the course of the
four-year program.
If the goal of a program is to mold pulpit
rabbis to lead Jewish congregations, “there has to be a real commitment
to character clarity,” said Friedman on behalf of the institutions.
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| Psychiatrist Dr. Michelle Friedman |
“We can only, and any institution can only,
set up an atmosphere of trust and confidentiality. The goal of the
process groups is for people to take it forward and trust in their band
of brothers so that when they come into a dark place of their own they
don’t keep it a secret and keep this nasty worm in their soul,” she
said.
Many rabbis, put on a pedestal by their congregations, lose sight of what it is to be human, and being human means imperfection.
Many rabbis, put on a pedestal by their congregations, lose sight of what it is to be human, and being human means imperfection.
At YCT, the goal is for the rabbinic student
to understand he can “still be a good rabbi and a flawed person… [to
instill] some sense of trust that when you have a dark time it’s not the
end of the world, and you don’t let it rot,” said Friedman.
Psychologist Salamon echoes Friedman’s
statements. “I want to emphasize — as much as we respect our spiritual
leaders, it is important to remember they are human beings. They don’t
get a pass because they’re nice people,” said Salamon, who said he has
received death threats for reporting abuse to secular authorities.
A cross-denominational epidemic
Sue Cox was raised to revere priests, and,
good Catholic girl that she was, she did. She was brought up to believe
that, in touching the communion bread, priests even had “sacred hands.”
But then the local parish priest began
touching her with his “blessed hands” and she was repeatedly abused and
raped from age 10 to 13. To get away from home and a mother who couldn’t
support her, Cox married by 17 and was divorced with six children by
32.
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| Sue Cox, founder of Survivors Voice Europe |
It took Cox 50 years to overcome her guilt and
shame to speak about her childhood abuse at the hands of the parish
priest. Today, the British healthcare worker and addictions counselor is
the founder of Survivors Voice Europe, an international organization that supports survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
She says she kept silent because she thought
she was the only one to suffer such unspeakable acts. But today she know
that speaking out is the only way to raise societal awareness over the
issue and prevent more attacks. Now the award-winning activist educates
at every opportunity.
“It’s not a nice thing to be well-known as
somebody who has been raped by a fat smelly clergy member,”
Cox frankly
told The Times of Israel in a phone call from England this week. But she
sees herself as a champion for those who have not yet been able to find
their voices.
‘With the world getting smaller through technology, people are more willing to stand up and be counted’
Through Survivors Voice Europe Cox has heard
stories from all over the globe of abuse at the hands of priests,
ministers and rabbis. The survivors — not victims — find a community
within the organization, and peace of mind in knowing they are not
alone.
“It largely doesn’t matter what flavor of
cleric they are — rabbi, priest or Anglican vicar — the issue is all
about power abuse,” she said.
But Cox is amazingly optimistic for an abuse
activist. For a millennium, she said, religious hierarchy has allowed
clerics who feel themselves above the law get away with these crimes.
Now, however, through the amplification of social media to expose
potentially abusive behaviors in real time, this is getting harder to
do.
“With the world getting smaller through
technology, people are more willing to stand up and be counted,” she
said. “Young people are more aware of risks and “less easily duped.”
“The world is getting better. It’s a horrible
thing to realize that it’s been like this forever, but the only way to
change it is to shine a spotlight on these dark corners of hierarchies
that have been getting away with it for years,” said Cox.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-more-reports-of-rabbinic-sex-abuse-are-a-good-thing/