Yeshiva Victim Overcomes Shame To Speak Out

One of Macy Gordon's Accusers Tells Story of Alleged Abuse

By Anonymous

The author claims to have been sodomized by Rabbi Macy Gordon, a former teacher at Yeshiva University High School for Boys, while a student at the school in the late 1970s and early ’80s. His was one of the accusations reported in the Forward’s December 21 issue, in “Student Claims of Abuse Not Reported by Y.U. Leader.”

I am Macy Gordon’s accuser. My allegations are true, yet I understand why some people may doubt my claims. I wish now to respond to some of the comments I have read in the wake of the Forward’s revelations and to make a few statements of my own.

To those who say that pedophiles exploit more than one child and that there must be other victims — you are correct. There was at least one more victim but he has not come forward. I cannot speak for him, but for me the exposing of this abuse has evoked nightmares and forced me to relive traumatic events that I had put behind me. Although I have asked to be anonymous, there is no guarantee that my identity will remain protected, and that is a risk I take. If other victims decide to remain silent out of fear or otherwise, that is their right, but it does not make me a liar.

To those who knew or know Rabbi Gordon and respect him, shock and denial is a reasonable response; however, surely they know that this was the reaction in the cases of Jerry Sandusky and many Catholic clergy. It is that very veneer of respect that might enable some of these infamous pedophiles to commit serial crimes. If it were the janitor, he would be reported immediately. But when a revered member of society commits these crimes, victims are confused and are frightened of the perpetrator’s authority. Their stature also grants these pedophiles a lesser degree of suspicion. That, too, intimidates victims.

To those who are outraged that these individuals are being tried in the press, this was the last — and only — resort. Rabbi Norman Lamm, Y.U,’s former president, admitted that staff who had improper sexual activity were let go, especially if it was what he called a “cut-and-dry case.” In my case we reported the activity to Y.U. and as far as I know they did not investigate further, although I gave them the name of another victim. That also means they did not try to evaluate or assist that other student. After so many years, the statute of limitations has expired. Others have previously pleaded with Y.U. to investigate past sex abuses but were ignored. The only way this has gotten any attention was through the media. Whatever you think of the Forward, the paper’s staffers are not stupid. Trust me that they did their due diligence, interviewed me a number of times and still took great risks to publish my account.

To those who doubt my account because of the details, that hurts me the most. You are essentially accusing me of being not just a liar, but also a bad liar. Would you be more satisfied if I said I had been raped? It should be self-evident that victims do not choose their method of assault.

To you victims of sexual abuse who are still struggling to find your way, I understand you. Perhaps you blame yourself. Your response is normal. In fact, you are entitled to whatever feelings you have about this. You are also entitled to get professional help, which is what I did. You may want to reconsider your connection to religion, but I encourage you to not let the predator rob you of your ties to Judaism. Find the best values that religion has to offer and live by them, as I do. Gemilut chesed, acts of loving-kindness will help you heal. Dedicate yourself to some form of community service and your faith in people and yourself will be restored.

To the Orthodox who are grappling with this, some of you are stuck between the concepts of lashon hara, gossiping, and motzi shem ra, discussing false accusations. This is a reflex response for some of you, but also a convenient way to stifle discourse on an important topic for the community.

To Rabbi Macy Gordon, you are now an old man, but you were in your prime when you assaulted me. Although you had no compassion for me, I have some rachmanus, compassion for you. I feel bad for you that you must deal with this now at this stage of life. And I feel very sad for your children. This cannot be easy on them, but it is your own fault. Also your fault is that I cannot daven the shmone esrei in peace and often skip it entirely. That is because you required us to memorize the modim and I find myself thinking of what you did to me. It is your fault that it took me many years to trust people again.

To Rabbi Norman Lamm, how is it that you do not now remember the “shock” that we were told you experienced upon hearing of my molestation at the hands of Macy Gordon? I suppose a $250,000 donation to name a scholarship after Gordon is incentive enough to forget. To current Y.U. President Richard Joel, what will you do now? Will you allow the Macy Gordon scholarship to stand? In the end, I have to say that I did learn some things during my time at Yeshiva:

To distrust authority, especially the clergy.

That the Orthodox are for sure better at observing various rituals but are just as corrupt and unethical as everyone else (they just don’t see it that way).

I want to share a story that even I find incredible in retrospect. I once was caught cheating on a chumash test in Macy Gordon’s class, but I tried to lie about it. I was sent down to the office of the assistant principal, George Finkelstein, where he looked at me sternly and said, “Averah goreret averah” — “One sin begets another.”

Indeed.

http://forward.com/articles/168094/yeshiva-victim-overcomes-shame-to-speak-out/

Yeshiva Officials, Rabbis Knew of Alleged Abuse

More Students Say Nothing Was Done About Allegations

After the Forward published an investigation into sexual abuse allegations against two former staff members at a high school for boys run by Yeshiva University, Y.U. issued an immediate statement and said that it would investigate. Later that day, Modern Orthodoxy’s official rabbinic association, the Rabbinical Council of America, said it was “deeply troubled” by the report and confident that the university was “equal to the task” of confronting “improprieties.”

But interviews with current and former staff members of Y.U. and with high-ranking RCA officials, as well as with several former high school students who say they were abused, indicate that Y.U. and the RCA have known about some of the allegations against at least one of the alleged abusers, Rabbi George Finkelstein, for a decade or longer.

The Forward has spoken to 14 men who say that Finkelstein abused them while he was employed at Yeshiva University High School for Boys, in Manhattan, from 1968 to 1995.

From the mid 1980s until today, however, Y.U. officials and RCA rabbis have dismissed claims or kept them quiet. Some of these officials allowed Finkelstein to leave the Y.U. system and find a new position as dean of a Florida day school without disclosing the abuse allegations. Later, an RCA rabbi and a Y.U. rabbi warned the Florida school that Finkelstein could be a threat. And when Finkelstein’s next employer, the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, asked whether the allegations that dogged him were true, Y.U. assured the synagogue that there was nothing to worry about.

Maurice Wohl, the synagogue’s president at the time, “spoke to the responsible authorities at Y.U, who denied the charges outright,” Zev Lanton, the synagogue’s director general, said in a statement. “Later, the same authority, upon visiting Israel, offered similar denials, both to the chairman of the board of the synagogue and the vice president.”

In response to a Forward request for the identity of that Y.U. official, Lanton replied that the synagogue would “take outside advice” before responding.

The abuse allegations against Finkelstein and against Rabbi Macy Gordon, a Talmud teacher who served at Y.U.’s High School for Boys from 1956 to 1984, have shocked many in the tight-knit Modern Orthodox community. Even Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, decried the allegations in his keynote address at the Y.U. annual dinner, held on December 16...

READ ENTIRE ESSAY:
http://forward.com/articles/168012/yeshiva-officials-rabbis-knew-of-alleged-abuse/

"Goofball" No More! License, Train & Arm The Teachers - The Time Is Now!

STRATFORD, Conn. — She has come to be known for her instinctive heroism in saving the lives of many of her young students, but at her funeral on Wednesday, Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, was remembered in a way that only those closest to her would have known.

"Her last act was selfless,” the Rev. Meg Boxwell Williams said of Ms. Soto.

She was a sister, a cousin and a friend, someone who had a passion for teaching but also a beguiling “goofball” side that delighted her friends and relatives.

The funeral service, the first of six for the school employees who died in the massacre that also took the lives of 20 children on Friday, was held in a classic steepled white New England church in the Lordship neighborhood of Stratford on the Long Island Sound, where Ms. Soto had lived all of her 27 years. Services were also held for Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; and Caroline Previdi, 6. Wakes were held for Chase Kowalski, 7, and the school principal, Dawn Hochsprung, 47; their funerals were to be private.

So many people came to mourn Ms. Soto — perhaps 400 — at Lordship Community Church that half of the crowd endured the cold on chairs set up on a lawn outside the church, listening to the service on loudspeakers under a brilliant sun.

Her coffin, draped in white flowers, was carried into the church to the sorrowful sounds of three bagpipers as an honor guard of more than a dozen Connecticut police officers flanked the hearse and the other cars in the funeral caravan.

In her eulogy, the Rev. Meg Boxwell Williams praised Ms. Soto as a “quick-thinking, beautiful, selfless person” who huddled her first-grade pupils into a closet and cupboards and hurried others to escape as a determined gunman invaded the school.

“Her last act was selfless, Christlike in laying down her life for her children,” Ms. Williams said in closing remarks.

After the eulogy, a song was offered by a familiar voice: Paul Simon, who performed “The Sound of Silence,” the haunting words capturing the nightmarish nature of how Ms. Soto died and the emptiness her death left behind. A representative for Mr. Simon said, “The Sotos and Simons met through Vicki’s mother and Paul’s sister-in-law, both nurses.”

Relatives and friends, some choking or weeping openly as they spoke, recalled her as a daughter, a sister to three siblings, a cousin and a friend. Ms. Soto was remembered as a young woman with long brown hair, captivating blue eyes and “an infectious laugh,” one who had a passion for gathering her extended family together whenever she could and making relatives laugh with sometimes zany impulsive gestures.

They recalled how Ms. Soto, on a whim, insisted that all of her cousins and siblings buy cheap sunglasses before a trip to a Six Flags amusement park, how she woke her lovesick college roommate with “Kiss the Girl” from the Disney film “The Little Mermaid.” Ms. Soto loved the Yankees’ No. 11, Brett Gardner; collected flamingos in all shapes and sizes; and seemed to live for Christmas and the chance to ornament a tree that she insisted on choosing, and to be surrounded by her family.

“You were the funniest, goofiest person I know,” Heather Cronk, a cousin, said.

Ms. Soto’s roommate at Eastern Connecticut State University, Rachel Schiavone, said Ms. Soto was “always up for anything.”

“When she hugged you,” she said, “she put her whole heart and soul into every hug she gave.”

Ms. Soto’s aunt, Debbie Cronk, a teacher who was her professional inspiration, remembered how exuberant Ms. Soto was when she called five years ago to say she had secured a job at Sandy Hook Elementary. But Ms. Cronk also remembered her mischievous side, how as a little girl Ms. Soto loved feeding the ducks near her grandmother’s house, though not as much as eating the bread herself.

Ms. Schiavone, her best friend, recalled Ms. Soto’s devotion to the profession — spending every evening working on lesson plans and designing poster boards — and the extra mile she went for her students.

“It does not surprise me at all that Vicki died protecting her kids,” Ms. Schiavone said.

Gary MacNamara, the chief of the Fairfield Police Department, who rushed to the Sandy Hook school shortly after the shooting, said Ms. Soto had “pushed children into a closet and allowed other kids to escape” before she herself was killed by Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old armed with a semiautomatic rifle and other guns.

“All of law enforcers are asked what will we do if given that moment when a life-threatening decision has to be made,” Chief MacNamara said in an interview. “She answered that question: through her strength, she took action to save the life of the students. I know, because I’ve spoken to children in that class who are alive because of what she did.”

The service began with the singing of “Amazing Grace,” and then Ms. Williams reminded mourners that it was “God who consoles us in our affliction” and that death did not “separate us from the love of God.” Yet, Ms. Soto’s death was “a shock that goes beyond our comprehension.”

“We had no warning, no time to tie up loose ends, to clean up misunderstandings, to say I love you one last time.”

She talked about the muddle of emotions that someone might feel, even “flashes of anger at Vicki — why did you have to be so good” and sacrifice herself for so many children.

Yet, the minister concluded, those were the selfless instincts that made Ms. Soto the teacher she was.






http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/nyregion/remembering-the-passion-of-victoria-soto-a-sandy-hook-teacher.html?ref=nyregion&_r=0

Will children with autism or mental illness be shunned even more than they already are?

Don’t Blame Autism for Newtown

Last Wednesday night I listened to Andrew Solomon, the author of the extraordinary new book “Far From the Tree,” talk about the frequency of filicide in families affected by autism. Two days later, I watched the news media attempt to explain a matricide and a horrific mass murder in terms of the killer’s supposed autism.

It began as insinuation, but quickly flowered into outright declaration. Words used to describe the killer, Adam Lanza, began with “odd,” “aloof” and “a loner,” shaded into “lacked empathy,” and finally slipped into “on the autism spectrum” and suffering from “a mental illness like Asperger’s.” By Sunday, it had snowballed into a veritable storm of accusation and stigmatization.

Whether reporters were directly attributing Mr. Lanza’s shooting rampage to his autism or merely shoddily lumping together very different conditions, the false and harmful messages were abundant.

Let me clear up a few misconceptions. For one thing, Asperger’s and autism are not forms of mental illness; they are neurodevelopmental disorders or disabilities. Autism is a lifelong condition that manifests before the age of 3; most mental illnesses do not appear until the teen or young adult years. Medications rarely work to curb the symptoms of autism, but they can be indispensable in treating mental illness like obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Underlying much of this misreporting is the pernicious and outdated stereotype that people with autism lack empathy. Children with autism may have trouble understanding the motivations and nonverbal cues of others, be socially naïve and have difficulty expressing their emotions in words, but they are typically more truthful and less manipulative than neurotypical children and are often people of great integrity. They can also have a strong desire to connect with others and they can be intensely empathetic — they just attempt those connections and express that empathy in unconventional ways. My child with autism, in fact, is the most empathetic and honorable of my three wonderful children.

Additionally, a psychopathic, sociopathic or homicidal tendency must be separated out from both autism and from mental illness more generally. While autistic children can sometimes be aggressive, this is usually because of their frustration at being unable to express themselves verbally, or their extreme sensory sensitivities. Moreover, the form their aggression takes is typically harmful only to themselves. In the very rare cases where their aggression is externally directed, it does not take the form of systematic, meticulously planned, intentional acts of violence against a community.

And if study after study has definitively established that a person with autism is no more likely to be violent or engage in criminal behavior than a neurotypical person, it is just as clear that autistic people are far more likely to be the victims of bullying and emotional and physical abuse by parents and caregivers than other children. So there is a sad irony in making autism the agent or the cause rather than regarding it as the target of violence.

In the wake of coverage like this, I worry, in line with concerns raised by the author Susan Cain in her groundbreaking book on introverts, “Quiet”: will shy, socially inhibited students be looked at with increasing suspicion as potentially dangerous? Will a quiet, reserved, thoughtful child be pegged as having antisocial personality disorder? Will children with autism or mental illness be shunned even more than they already are?

This country needs to develop a better understanding of the complexities of various conditions and respect for the profound individuality of its children. We need to emphasize that being introverted doesn’t mean one has a developmental disorder, that a developmental disorder is not the same thing as a mental illness, and that most mental illnesses do not increase a person’s tendency toward outward-directed violence.

We should encourage greater compassion for all parents facing an extreme challenge, whether they have children with autism or mental illness or have lost their children to acts of horrific violence (and that includes the parents of killers).

Consider this, posted on Facebook yesterday by a friend of mine from high school who has an 8-year-old, nonverbal child with severe autism:

“Today Timmy was having a first class melt down in Barnes and Nobles and he rarely melts down like this. He was throwing his boots, rolling on the floor, screaming and sobbing. Everyone was staring as I tried to pick him up and [his brother Xander] scrambled to pick up his boots. I was worried people were looking at him and wondering if he would be a killer when he grows up because people on the news keep saying this Adam Lanza might have some spectrum diagnosis ... My son is the kindest soul you could ever meet. Yesterday, a stranger looked at Timmy and said he could see in my son’s eyes and smile that he was a kind soul; I am thankful that he saw that.”

Rather than averting his eyes or staring, this stranger took the time to look, to notice and to share his appreciation of a child’s soul with his mother. The quality of that attention is what needs to be cultivated more generally in this country.

It could take the form of our taking the time to look at, learn about and celebrate each of the tiny victims of this terrible shooting. It could manifest itself in attempts to dismantle harmful, obfuscating stereotypes or to clarify and hone our understanding of each distinct condition, while remembering that no category can ever explain an individual. Let’s try to look in the eyes of every child we encounter, treat, teach or parent, whatever their diagnosis or label, and recognize each child’s uniqueness, each child’s inimitable soul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/dont-blame-autism-for-newtown.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

Signs of Autism:http://www.mifne-autism.com/early-detection/

“She said that whenever she told Noah ‘I love you,’ his answer to her was: ‘Not as much as I love you.’ ”



Veronique Pozner, the mother of Noah Pozner, 6, was escorted by a rabbi after services at a funeral home in Fairfield, Conn.

In addition to a taco-factory manager, she said, Noah also wanted to be a doctor.




NEWTOWN, Conn. — Noah Pozner loved tacos, so much so that he talked of wanting to be the manager of a taco factory when he grew up; that way, he would be able to eat a taco whenever he wanted. He had a way of charming his elders and loved his siblings, including a twin sister who was in another classroom that day.

Jack Pinto adored the New York Giants and proudly wore a red Little League cap adorned with a large N for the name of his hometown. He was a spinning top of a boy, bouncing from one activity to the next, as if the day could never contain all the fun to be had.

The people of Newtown buried these two boys under an ashen sky on Monday afternoon, in the first of the many funerals to follow last week’s massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. They were both 6 years old.

The realization that Jack and Noah were gone settled like the December chill upon the Honan Funeral Home in Newtown, where a Christian service was held for Jack, and upon the Abraham L. Green and Sons Funeral Home in Fairfield, where a Jewish service was held for Noah.

An 8-year-old boy named Nolan Krieger, dressed in khaki pants and a plaid dress shirt, captured the intensifying sense of loss as he left the service for his friend Jack. “I used to do everything with him,” Nolan said, rubbing his eyes. “We liked to wrestle. We played Wii. We just played all the time. I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.”

The how of their deaths is, by now, internationally known. A 20-year-old man named Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother on Friday morning. Then, armed with an assault rifle and two handguns, he shot his way into the elementary school and killed 20 first-grade children and six school officials, all women, before killing himself.

The why of their deaths, though, is still being pieced together. The school remains a crime scene, and law enforcement officials said they expected to spend weeks, if not months, investigating angles and interviewing witnesses — including children — to develop the complete, unsettling picture.

First, though, there was Monday, just after Hanukkah, a week before Christmas Eve — and what was supposed to be the first school day after the devastation in the classroom on Friday.

In Fairfield, about 25 miles south of Newtown, mourners formed a somber queue outside the two-story, white-clapboard Green funeral home. Many were from Temple Adath Israel, the Pozner family’s Conservative synagogue in Newtown. Dannel P. Malloy, the governor of Connecticut, and one of its United States senators, Richard Blumenthal, were also there.

A little girl in a pink hooded coat, clutching a floppy stuffed animal, served as a reminder of the innocence lost, as a couple of bomb-sniffing dogs did, in their own way.

Lt. James Perez of the Fairfield Police Department said that nonspecific threats of protests at the funeral home, coupled with “stupid comments” on the Internet and on social media, had prompted the unusually large police presence. “You have to prepare,” the officer said. “Newtown wasn’t warned either.”

Lieutenant Perez said that he had been inside, and had spoken with the family — as best as he could. “To see it be a child, it’s just beyond — ” he said, adding, “I didn’t have any words.”

During the service, Noah’s teenage brother, Michael, spoke for himself and for his other siblings. Diane Buchanan, the mother of one of Michael’s friends, said the young man had to pause to gather his emotions as he spoke. “We no longer have a brother,” she recalled him saying, “but now we have a guardian angel.”

Noah’s mother, Veronique, also eulogized Noah, and talked of his boundless aspirations. In addition to a taco-factory manager, she said, he also wanted to be a doctor. Throughout, observers said, she spoke with a remarkable poise that seemed meant to help others cope with the loss.

“But the main thing she left was one point,” said Rabbi Edgar Gluck, who splits his time between Krakow, Poland, and Borough Park in Brooklyn. “She said that whenever she told him ‘I love you,’ his answer to her was: ‘Not as much as I love you.’ ”

Outside the Honan Funeral Home in Newtown, Conn., where services were held for Jack Pinto, 6. “We just played all the time,” one friend said. “I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.” ...




READ MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/nyregion/two-funerals-for-two-6-year-old-boys-in-newtown.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&hp

Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?

                  "We’re all parents, that they are all our children...

........"But we as a nation, we are left with some hard questions. You know, someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around.

With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves, our child, is suddenly exposed to the world, to possible mishap or malice, and every parent knows there’s nothing we will not do to shield our children from harm. And yet we also know that with that child’s very first step and each step after that, they are separating from us, that we won’t — that we can’t always be there for them.

They will suffer sickness and setbacks and broken hearts and disappointments, and we learn that our most important job is to give them what they need to become self-reliant and capable and resilient, ready to face the world without fear. And we know we can’t do this by ourselves.

It comes as a shock at a certain point where you realize no matter how much you love these kids, you can’t do it by yourself, that this job of keeping our children safe and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community and the help of a nation.

And in that way we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child, because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours, that we’re all parents, that they are all our children.

This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.

And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we’re meeting our obligations?

Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?"......

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/sunday-coverage-of-newtown-school-shooting/#full-text-and-video-of-obamas-speech

By George! - I Told You It Was Just A Matter Of Time!

George Finkelstein

Alleged Yeshiva Abuser Quits as Accusations Mount!

Finkelstein Steps Down at Shul; 5 More Students Claim Abuse!

“Macy Gordon was malevolence personified,” said Barry Singer, who graduated from Y.U.’s Manhattan High School for Boys in 1975, “whereas George Finkelstein was a more complicated, disturbed individual.” “I fought these guys tooth and nail the entire time I was in school,” Singer added. “I had no idea that what was being done to me was sexual abuse or any abuse, I merely knew I didn’t want these guys touching me and I did my best to keep them away from me.”

A former staff member at Yeshiva University High School for Boys has resigned from his post at a synagogue in Jerusalem. Five more ex-students have told the Forward they were abused by rabbis George Finkelstein or Macy Gordon.

 Rabbi George Finkelstein has resigned his position at the Great Jerusalem Synagogue after the Forward reported that he had sexually abused students at Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan during the 1970s and ‘80s.

“He sent us an email saying he’s resigning because he does not want to expose the Great Synagogue to embarrassment,” Zalli Jaffe, the synagogue’s vice president, said in an interview. Finkelstein had served as the institution’s executive director since 2001; last month, he began serving as its ritual director.

Jaffe said that the resignation was received on Thursday, “immediately following the publication” of the Forward’s investigation. The correspondence came from France, where Finkelstein is currently vacationing.

Around the same time as Finkelstein resigned, senior staff of the Orthodox Union in America and Jerusalem held a teleconference regarding the position of the other Y.U. high school staff member investigated by the Forward, Rabbi Macy Gordon. They decided to impose a “leave of absence” on Gordon’s teaching duties at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem, where he gives a weekly class on the laws of the Sabbath, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive vice president emeritus, told the Forward on December 16.

He said that the unilaterally-imposed leave of absence will last until the OU can “clarify exactly what happened.” This is in spite of the fact that the OU has “to presume that he’s innocent until we find out more about it.”

Weinreb said: “When we became aware of the news article we felt we had to investigate ourselves to see what kind of credence to give [the claims].” He stressed that the allegations were dated to a time before Gordon started teaching at the OU.

He said of Gordon: “I know that he has no memory of the alleged incident whatsoever."

The dramatic news came as five more men have stepped forward to say they were inappropriately touched and suffered emotional and sexual abuse at the high school.....

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/167767/alleged-yeshiva-abuser-quits-as-accusations-mount/?p=all#ixzz2FEPA8wtn

‘Who Would Do This to Our Poor Little Babies?’ Let's ask "Wise Man" Avi Shafran & His "Brilliant" Bosses!

‘Who Would Do This to Our Poor Little Babies’

NEWTOWN, Conn. — Gradually, the group of frantic parents shrank and was gently ushered to wait in a back room in the old brick firehouse around the corner from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The sounds of cartoons playing for restless children wafted incongruously through the air, but the adults were hushed. A police officer entered and put the parents’ worst fears into words: their children were gone. The wails that followed could be heard from outside, sounding the end of a horrifying shooting that took the lives of 20 children and 6 adults in the school.

It was about 9:30 a.m., when the school locks its doors to the outside world, demanding identification from visitors. What happened next sounded different depending on where you were in the school when a normal school day exploded.

Pops. Bangs. Thundering, pounding booms that echoed, and kept coming and coming. Screams and the cries of children ebbed, until there was only the gunfire.

Countless safety drills learned over generations kicked in. Teachers sprang to their doors and turned the locks tight. Children and adults huddled in closets, crawled under desks and crouched in classroom corners.

Laura Feinstein, a reading support teacher, reached for her telephone. “I called the office and said, ‘Barb, is everything O.K.?’ and she said, ‘There is a shooter in the building.’ ”

“I heard gunshots going on and on and on,” Ms. Feinstein said.

Even in the gym, the loudest room in any school on a given day, something sounded very wrong. “Really loud bangs,” said Brendan Murray, 9, who was there with his fourth-grade class. “We thought that someone was knocking something over. And we heard yelling and we heard gunshots. We heard lots of gunshots.”

“We heard someone say, “ ‘Put your hands up!’ ” Brendan said. “I heard, ‘Don’t shoot!’ We had to go into the closet in the gym.”

In the library, Yvonne Cech, a librarian, locked herself, an assistant and 18 fourth graders in a closet behind file cabinets while the sound of gunfire thundered outside.

Witnesses said later that they heard as many as 100 gunshots, but saw next to nothing in their hiding places. What was happening?

“Some people,” a little girl said later, searching for words, “they got a stomachache.”

The shooting finally stopped. Most teachers kept the children frozen in hiding. Some 15 minutes later, there was another sound, coming from the school intercom. It had been on the whole time. A voice said, “It’s O.K. It’s safe now.”

Brendan, in the gym, said, “Then someone came and told us to run down the hallway. There were police at every door. There were lots of people crying and screaming.”

The officers led children past the carnage. “They said ‘Close your eyes, hold hands.’” said Vanessa Bajraliu, 9. Outside, a nightmare version of the school was taking shape. Police officers swarmed with dogs and roared overhead in helicopters. There were armored cars and ambulances.

Inside, the librarians and children had been hiding in the closet for 45 minutes when a SWAT team arrived and escorted them out.

Word spread quickly through the small town. At nearby Danbury Hospital, doctors and nurses girded for an onslaught of wounded victims. “We immediately convened four trauma teams to be ready for casualties,” a spokeswoman, Andrea Rynn, said. Nurses, surgeons, internal medicine and imaging specialists, as well as staff members from pathology and the hospital lab, rushed to assemble in the emergency room to receive an influx of patients from the shooting. An influx that never arrived. Only three victims came to the hospital, two of whom did not survive. The rest were already dead.

“I’ve been here for 11 years,” Ms. Feinstein, the teacher, said. “I can’t imagine who would do this to our poor little babies.” .........

NAMES OF THE VICTIMS:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/nyregion/victims-of-the-newtown-shootings.html?hp&_r=0

READ MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/witnesses-recall-deadly-shooting-sandy-hook-newtown-connecticut.html?src=mv&ref=general

18 Children Shot Dead In Cold Blood!

Eighteen children were killed on Friday morning in a shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., about 65 miles northeast of New York City, according to a person who had been briefed on the shooting. Another law enforcement official said there were adult casualties as well, which would rank it among the worst shootings in recent United States history.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?hp&_r=0

Chassid-Ism Is Not Judaism!

READ ENTIRE SICKENING ARTICLE:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/perv-posse-bullies-family-sex-abuse-victim-article-1.1219962

Report of ’80s Sexual Abuse Rattles Yeshiva Campus

Yeshiva University says it will review newly published claims that it had ignored accusations that teachers abused its high school’s students long ago.

A tall, imposing rabbi with a black goatee who served as assistant principal and principal during his 27 years at Yeshiva University High School for Boys, George B. Finkelstein was the face of authority to Mordechai Twersky, who graduated in 1981.

So when Rabbi Finkelstein asked Mr. Twersky to “hit him hard” during a meeting in his office in 1980, Mr. Twersky said in an interview on Thursday, he was mortified. When Mr. Twersky refused, the rabbi knocked him to the ground and sat on him, goading him to wrestle. He could feel the rabbi’s erection, Mr. Twersky, now 48, said.

Mr. Twersky’s account was published Thursday on the Web site of The Jewish Daily Forward, which also reported that another former student said that in the same year, when he was 16, the Talmud teacher, Rabbi Macy Gordon, visited him in his dormitory room. Rabbi Gordon inspected his genitalia, the student told The Forward. Then he sodomized him with a toothbrush.

Both rabbis have denied engaging in any inappropriate sexual behavior.

Rabbi Gordon’s accuser said his parents had complained to administrators, who promised action but did nothing. Several years later, Mr. Twersky, who said he wrestled with Rabbi Finkelstein twice more, also raised concerns with administrators, and several other students also complained about the rabbi’s wrestling. Yet administrators of Yeshiva University, the prestigious Modern Orthodox institution in Washington Heights that runs the high school, allowed each man to simply leave.

The university president from 1976 to 2003, Norman Lamm, who is now its chancellor, told The Forward that he never notified the police.

Dr. Lamm told the paper that when the school received complaints of sexual activity involving the staff, “if it was an open-and-shut case,” he would just let the staff member “go quietly.”

“It was not our intention or position to destroy a person without further inquiry,” he said.

“This was before things of this sort had attained a certain notoriety,” he added. “There was a great deal of confusion.”

In 1995, after administrators confronted Rabbi Finkelstein about the wrestling, the rabbi “decided to leave because he knew we were going to ask him to leave,” Dr. Lamm told the newspaper. The rabbi became the dean of Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School in North Miami Beach, Fla. Yeshiva did not notify the school about the accusations, Dr. Lamm told The Forward, and the school never asked.

Officials of the Florida school did not respond on Thursday to questions about Rabbi Finkelstein.

Rabbi Finkelstein eventually moved to Israel, where he served as the director general of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, and is now its ritual director. To The Forward, he acknowledged wrestling with students “as a way of trying to remove the distance between students and faculty,” but said the physical contact was not sexual.

Around the time the Jerusalem synagogue hired him, rumors reached synagogue leaders about the rabbi’s inappropriate conduct, said Zalli Jaffe, the synagogue’s vice president, in an e-mail on Thursday. Mr. Jaffe said the synagogue’s president contacted a “very high authority” at Yeshiva, “who denied the charges outright.”

The same allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced about four years ago, but the synagogue accepted Rabbi Finkelstein’s declarations of innocence because no charges had been filed. (Even if the police were to investigate the men today, criminal charges would be unlikely because the accusations described in The Forward happened too long ago under New York’s statutes of limitations.)

“Naturally the synagogue will carefully study the article and we will take advise in this matter, so we can conduct ourselves as befitting the Great Synagogue,” Mr. Jaffe wrote.

Rabbi Gordon retired from Yeshiva in 1984 and moved to Israel, and both he and Rabbi Finkelstein serve on an advisory board for the Council of Young Israel Rabbis in Jerusalem.

In an interview from his home on Thursday, Rabbi Gordon denied the allegations and asked to know the identity of his accuser.

“I heard the rumors years ago, but they’re simply rumors,” he said. “If I give it any credence at all, it is as an attempt by a disgruntled student to cast aspersions on a former teacher.”

Dr. Lamm would not comment on Thursday. In a statement, Richard Joel, Yeshiva’s president, apologized and promised to remain vigilant in the future...........

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/nyregion/report-of-sexual-abuse-rattles-manhattan-yeshiva-campus.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=nyregion

Hasidic Jew Child Molester Talking Points

Toward the end of last week, the New York Times published an expose on the Ultra-Orthodox community for ignoring a child molestation problem and for, in some instances, actually shunning and ostracizing the victims instead of seeking justice for them. How is this happening? Well, the Hasidic community reasons that by delivering the suspected pedophile over to the police for investigation, you are therefore transgressing Jewish law as a moser, or an informer. A moser cannot turn his fellow Jew in to a secular non-Jewish authority as derived by Maimonides’ extrapolation of ha’poresh mi’darchei tzibbur, or one who actively separates himself from the rest of the community. While I doubt that our great sage Rambam meant to protect the the lowest of the low, some Hasidic communities are nevertheless manipulating the learnings of our elders and in turn, sheltering these deviant monsters.

While I’m not entirely surprised that this sickening predatory activity is plaguing some shtetls (after all, there was even a Law & Order episode about it), I am saddened and shocked by the various reactions. And I don’t mean the delusional justifications and rationalizations of the Hasidic community leaders–I mean, the Jews living outside of the Williamsburgs and the Borough Parks. Based on the conversations I have had over the weekend since these necessary articles appeared, I would like to suggest some potential responses to our collective propensity to sweep shamefulness under the rug.

1. “The New York Times likes to pick on the Jews.”

This is a complaint I hear whenever the Times covers Israel, Jews, Israeli Jews, the banks, and/or brisket. And in truth, it may have some validity to it. The New York Times known for its liberal slant can oft portray Israel as oppressor, even when it’s not warranted. But that’s neither here nor there, and it’s also something you and I can never prove. Yet when I discussed the two aforementioned articles on the Hasidic community written by Ray Rivera and Sharon Otterman with someone I knew well, he said something along the lines of, “Well, of course, when it comes to the Jews it’s a big story. But what about the Church? Why don’t they talk about abuse in the Church?”

If you do a search for the words “abuse” and “church” on the nytimes.com, you will find 431,000 results. If you were to however limit it down from the last 150 years to the last seven days, you will still get 19 results. Deflecting the attention from ourselves to another fundamentally flawed and troubled religious system will by no means make our problems go away. Child abuse is a problem regardless of the house of worship, and kudos to the New York Times for bringing this to light even if, according to many, the daily paper still may hate Israel.

2. “It’s not worth ruining someone’s reputation especially if the accusations aren’t true.”

First and foremost, shame on Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, the executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, for having a response similar to this. And this is coming from a media outlet that once photographed Roseanne dressed as Hitler. Zwiebel, along with his extremely influential and powerful Orthodox organization, determined last year that Orthodox Jews should not report allegations to the police unless a Rabbi has given permission to do so. He also said that “you can destroy a person’s life with a false report.” Incidentally, you can also destroy a person’s life by putting your hand down his pants without permission. Zwiebel also added that “you speak it over with a rabbi before coming to any definitive conclusion in your own mind,” which implies that after an incident, it is important that you first consult with a rabbi so he may convince you that it was not molesting, but just tickling.

3. “I understand the secrecy. After all, if could ruin the shidduch (impending marriage proposals).”

It’s hard to believe but this was actually said to me, but it was. And it wasn’t said in an effort to implicitly justify the cover-up attempts–the person who had this reaction was simply channeling the Hasidic community’s emphasis on yichus, or legacy. If, hypothetically, someone’s brother or sister had been accused of being a child molester, this would affect the siblings’ chances of getting married. It’s sadly accurate in a community that weighs worthiness on, for example, what kind of China they set the Shabbos table with.

I think in an ideal world everyone would agree that one should not be held responsible for his or her family member’s actions. However, that is very much the case in the Ultra-Orthodox world. Families have and always will go to extreme measures in maintaining an uncontaminated facade like hiding their televisions in cabinets, keeping diseases or sicknesses obsessively secret, and in some cases, even protecting the identity of a pedophile. Maybe, though, once it would be known that someone’s brother was forcibly abusing children and as a result, his sister went years without a suitor, the community would only then react with less tolerance.

What I’m suggesting here is that if there had an old maid problem in Williamsburg, the rabbis would then maybe speak out against child molesting.

4. “We should be able to handle this within our own community. No need to get the police involved.”

In March, the Times notes, Satmar Hasidic authorities in Williamsburg posted a Yiddish posters in synagogues warning adults and children to stay away from a community member who they said was molesting boys. But the sign didn’t recommend calling the police: “With great pain we must, according to the request of the brilliant rabbis (may they live long and good lives), inform you that the young man,” who was named, “is, unfortunately, an injurious person and he is a great danger to our community.” This is a step in the right direction, but sadly, it is not very effective.

I know of one definitive example in which a serial child molester–I’m speaking of at least two-dozen individual accusations–left the country, rebuilt his life in Israel, and currently works with children. You would think for this not to be the case, considering the small Jewish geography we occupy, but it’s incredibly easy for a violator to re-root his life in another Jewish community and pick up exactly where they left off with a trail of unvindicated victims in his wake.

5. “It’s not as bad as “they” make it out to be.”

When it comes to harming young children, there should be a zero tolerance policy. I don’t care if it only happened once or twice. However, according to journalists Sharon Otterman and Ray Riveria “in recent months, a new program called Kol Tzedek, the Voice of Justice, has contributed to an effective crackdown on child sexual abuse among ultra-Orthodox Jews, saying it had led to 95 arrests involving more than 120 victims.” 95 arrests. 120 victims. Williamsburg, we have a problem.

6. “The rabbis understand things we cannot so we must accept it.”

The overwhelming response to the reposting of the Times articles on the comprehensive Orthodox Jewish blog Vo Is Neius is that the notion of moser should never apply in regards to abuse especially when considering “dina d’malchusoh dina,” that we are obligated to follow the laws of the land we occupy. These commenters and readers are for the most part observent G-d fearing people, yet allowing the police to intervene seems obvious to them. This shouldn’t be seen as a contradiction.

If, in eventuality, the rabbis’ devotees, the frequent shul goers, and the check-writing participants speak out and demand a zero tolerance policy, maybe the molesting business wouldn’t be so good. But by the communal passivity, rabbis remaining silent, and the continued blind eye, they are ostensibly supporting the continuation of it. And it may come to a point when the crying of our children gets too difficult to ignore even as the words of some rabbis try to drown them out.

http://heebmagazine.com/hasidic-child-molester-talking-points/36093

The Enemy Within - Part Three - Chassidism Is Not Judaism

AUGUST, 2005

Make no mistake, Chassidism is not part of authentic Judaism..........

READ ENTIRE RANT:
http://unorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2005/08/enemy-within-part-three-chassidism-is.html

http://unorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2005/08/enemy-within-part-three-chassidism-is.html

No religious institution has the right to shield its child abusers from civil prosecution!

Editorial -- Justice in Williamsburg - Brooklyn, New York

The sexual abuse conviction in a State Supreme Court in Brooklyn of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community sends a strong and overdue message to Williamsburg’s tightly knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, which has shielded such abusers from legal scrutiny.

In a case brought by Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, the court convicted Nechemya Weberman, a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist, of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help. Mr. Hynes said the verdict had lifted the “veil of secrecy” and had served notice that henceforth the prospects for justice are “only going to get better for people who are victimized in these various communities.”

Prosecutors have long had trouble finding witnesses in the community because speaking out, especially to non-Jewish legal authorities, could bring retaliation. In this particular case, Mr. Hynes charged four men with allegedly trying to interfere with bribery and threats. Four others face criminal contempt of court charges for taking pictures in the courtroom in an apparent attempt to intimidate the victim. On Tuesday, Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, an advocate for child sex abuse victims, was taken to a hospital after what appeared to be bleach was thrown in his face as he walked down the street in Williamsburg.

The Weberman case is Mr. Hynes’s first conviction involving sexual abuse by a prominent member of Williamsburg’s Satmar community. He and his prosecutors owe much of that success to the bravery of the victim, who was 12 when she was sent to Mr. Weberman for what school officials considered rebelliousness. Now 18, she testified that she was forced to endure the abuse for three years. Mr. Weberman denied her charges, and his lawyer said he plans to appeal.

After receiving some criticism for not aggressively pursuing such crimes in the politically active ultra-Orthodox community, Mr. Hynes’s office has stepped up prosecution of abusers. Groups supporting the rights of victims have also been winning ground: a religious court for another Jewish community ruled last year that in cases of child abuse, “one is forbidden to remain silent” and must report the charge to civil authorities. The Satmar community should do the same.

No religious institution has the right to shield its child abusers from civil prosecution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/justice-in-williamsburg.html

UOJ GETS RESULTS!

RCA on Guilty Verdict of Orthodox Jew for Child Molestation

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the world's largest organization of Orthodox rabbis is encouraged by the process that led to the conviction of Nechemyah Weberman, an Orthodox Jew who acted as an unlicensed counselor and was today found guilty for the sexual molestation of an adolescent girl. For many years the RCA has condemned the efforts of many parts of the Jewish community to cover up or ignore allegations of abuse, viewing these efforts as against Jewish law, illegal, and irresponsible to the welfare of victims and the greater community. The RCA strongly advocates, as a matter of Jewish law, the reporting of reasonable suspicions of child abuse to the civil authorities and full cooperation with the criminal justice system. The RCA decries any invocation of Jewish law or communal interests as tools in silencing victims or witnesses from reporting abuse or from receiving therapeutic and communal support and strongly condemn those members of the Jewish community who used such tactics in this case.

In light of the issues raised in this trial the RCA commits itself to increasing the training of its members who serve in all areas of the rabbinate, including pulpits, education, chaplaincy, and communal service, to know how to recognize, prevent, and respond appropriately to issues of child abuse. In addition, the RCA will help its members develop policies regarding prevention and response to issues of child abuse in their individual congregations and schools, as well as in their larger communities, and, where nonexistent, to support the creation of response teams that include mental health practitioners, law-enforcement personnel, and specially trained rabbis to respond to allegations of abuse and molestation.

Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, president of the RCA, stated, "Weberman's conviction is validation of our commitment to work with law enforcement to protect the innocent victims of our community and to hold their perpetrators accountable." Rabbi Mark Dratch, Executive Vice President of the RCA and founder of JSafe: The Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse Free Environment, added, "We, like other religious communities, have come a long way in recent years in recognizing and addressing issues of child abuse in our communities. We increasingly understand that our religious texts, traditions, and values must serve as resources of strength and support for members of our faith communities, not as roadblocks to their safety and security."

http://www.rabbis.org/news/article.cfm?id=105726

“The veil of secrecy has been lifted,” said Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. “The wall that has existed in parts of these communities has now been broken through.

Nechemya Weberman aka THE ANIMAL

Abuse Verdict Topples a Hasidic Wall of Secrecy!



Sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has long been hidden. Victims who came forward were intimidated into silence; their families were shunned; cases were dropped for a lack of cooperation.

But on Monday, a State Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn delivered a stunning victory to prosecutors and victims’ advocates, convicting a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist who is a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help.

“The veil of secrecy has been lifted,” said Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. “The wall that has existed in parts of these communities has now been broken through. And as far as I’m concerned, it is very clear to me that it is only going to get better for people who are victimized in these various communities.”

The case against the therapist, Nechemya Weberman, was a significant milestone for Mr. Hynes, whose office has been criticized for not acting aggressively enough against sexual abusers in the borough’s large and politically connected ultra-Orthodox community.

The verdict represented the first time Mr. Hynes’ office has won a conviction of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg for child sexual abuse.

The case also offered a glimpse of the Satmar community’s shadowy efforts to enforce rigid codes of behavior — particularly for young girls — by allowing so-called modesty committees to intimidate girls for wearing revealing clothing or using cellphones, and requiring parents to send children judged to be breaking rules to religious counselors, many of whom are not licensed and charge high fees.

The trial of Mr. Weberman, which began on Nov. 26, was a difficult one because there was no physical evidence; the trial hinged on the credibility of Mr. Weberman, who is well connected and powerful in his community, and that of a young woman who had been shunned for being a rebellious teen. The girl said Mr. Weberman had abused her for three years, starting when she was 12, groping her and forcing her to perform oral sex. He denied he had ever touched her.

The jury believed the young woman and convicted Mr. Weberman of all 59 counts against him. Justice John G. Ingram scheduled a sentencing on Jan. 9; the most serious charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years, but depending on how the sentence is structured, Mr. Weberman could spend even longer in prison.

Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York who studies the Hasidic community, called the verdict “remarkable.”

“Here was a guy protected by the community, supported by the community, and the case against him was from a young girl,” Professor Heilman said. Among the things it demonstrates, he said, is that “the district attorney should have started this kind of thing sooner.”

The verdict against Mr. Weberman was a deeply emotional moment for the young woman, who is now 18, and her family, according to her mother, who spoke in a telephone interview several hours after the verdict.

“I cried and cried, and couldn’t stop crying,” said the woman, whose name is being withheld by The New York Times to shield the identity of her daughter. “I couldn’t stop crying that justice came out.”

Mr. Weberman did not show emotion as the word “guilty” was read out, 59 times, in the 20th floor courtroom. He looked briefly at members of his family, who held on to each other as the verdict was read, and then was led into custody.

One of Mr. Weberman’s lawyers, George Farkas, said he would appeal.

“We firmly believe that this jury got an unfairly sanitized version of the facts, and as a result the truth did not come out,” he said. “The struggle to clear an innocent man will continue in full force.”

Prosecutors told reporters after the verdict that other women had come forward to assert that they had been abused by Mr. Weberman, including one who had come forward during the trial. Mr. Hynes said those women were unwilling or unable to testify, leaving his office with just one prosecutable case.

Mr. Hynes said he was hopeful that the victim’s “great courage” in testifying would encourage other women who have been abused, particularly in ultra-Orthodox communities, to come forward.

Prosecution of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox community has been hampered in the past by the intimidation of witnesses. In this case, Mr. Hynes’s office brought charges against four men for allegedly trying to interfere with the case, through bribery and threats. Then, during the trial, four other men were charged with criminal contempt in the second degree for taking cellphone pictures of the victim, in violation of court rules. And although supporters of accused abusers often dominated the galleries at previous trials of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, on many days at this trial, supporters of the accuser and advocates for abuse victims were in the majority.

Rabbi Yosef Blau, a victims’ advocate and the spiritual supervisor of Yeshiva University, said he hoped that the Satmar community would now be forced to change how it dealt with troubled young people, who, like this young victim, had been sent to counselors without training or accountability, instead of licensed professionals.

“It’s a system which allowed this abuse to take place,” he said. “It involves no scrutiny, no controls, and is a terrible way of dealing with children who have issues, whatever those issues might be.”

But Pearl Engleman of Williamsburg, who became a victims’ advocate after her son said that he had been molested in the Satmar school system, said it would take more than this case to transform her community. Hundreds turned up for a fund-raiser in Mr. Weberman’s support this year, and even with a guilty verdict, she said, she does not expect many to change their minds.

“There are people who are still rooting for him,” she said. “They just can’t wrap their heads around a Jew sitting in jail for that much time.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/nyregion/hasidic-man-found-guilty-of-sexual-abuse.html?pagewanted=2&hp

Jewry accused of hiding sex-abuse - ''This is not reporting that a child is at risk, it is reporting a crime.''

Community leader and abuse whistleblower, Manny Waks. "Worse, in all of these new cases, those in positions of authority attempted to cover up these crimes."

TWO paedophiles - one reportedly the youngest person ever put on the Victorian Sex Offenders Register - were ''roaming the Jewish community'' with most members utterly unaware, the state inquiry into how religious groups handled child sex abuse was told on Monday.

Community leader and abuse whistleblower Manny Waks said there was overwhelming evidence that child sexual abuse was endemic in the Jewish community and ''the appalling way in which it has been mishandled'', including credible claims of continuing cover-ups.

He said that in the few months since his written submission there had been more serious allegations of child sexual abuse. ''Worse, in all of these new cases, those in positions of authority attempted to cover up these crimes.''

Mr Waks, a former vice-president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, last year became the first Jewish victim to publicly tell the story of his abuse, at Yeshivah College in Melbourne more than 20 years ago. He gave evidence with his father, Zephaniah Waks, but Family and Community Development committee chairwoman Georgie Crozier suppressed Mr Waks senior's testimony.

Manny Waks said several new allegations had come to him, partly because victims and families often sought his advice. In one case, he said, a family was forced to leave Melbourne under pressure from rabbis after they made allegations against a senior figure who ''is still roaming freely within the Melbourne Jewish community''.

In another case, a young member of the Jewish community was convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault against minors - becoming the youngest listed offender - and he too was freely roaming the community, Mr Waks said.

Another man, 36, was alleged to have sexually abused several children in the Yeshivah community - part of the Orthodox Chabad movement - and fled Australia as soon as he heard police were investigating him. Mr Waks said the man was himself allegedly sexually abused repeatedly as a child by a relative, an active member of the Sydney Jewish community.

In another Yeshivah case, a man, 30, is alleged to have abused a child, 13, about three years ago.

''Most devastatingly, over the past few days, I have been informed of a possible link between an alleged incident of child sexual abuse at Yeshivah and a subsequent suicide.''

He said he had also received a number of allegations of abuse and cover-ups within the Sydney and Perth communities.

Mr Waks said the Executive Council of Australian Jewry had ''done everything it could to downplay this scandal'' and that in some cases ''their scant response was highly damaging''.

He said he and other victims were deeply hurt, angry and incredulous not only about the abuse and the cover-ups, the intimidation of victims and their families, but the ''meek response'' by Jewish community leadership.

Dr Tom Keating, abuse victim, academic and child protection expert, told the inquiry that mandatory reporting was irrelevant for child sex abuse by clergy, because the purpose of mandatory reporting was to ensure the guardian was protecting the child.

Dr Keating, a former head of Victoria's Department of Human Services, said a child protection worker to whom abuse was reported would have to advise telling police. ''This is not reporting that a child is at risk, it is reporting a crime.''

He said the Catholic Church abuse protocols, Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response, were perfectly designed to produce the results they did, protecting the church's reputation and wealth. ''In my experience the church authorities are entirely unencumbered by ethical or pastoral concerns.''

He said that despite church leaders' protestations that flourishing abuse was a thing of the past, their modern attitudes of clerical control, suppressing dissent, alienating women and persecuting gays meant sexual abuse was more likely.

 http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/jewry-accused-of-hiding-sexabuse-20121210-2b5o7.html#ixzz2EiKkSjN1

Jury finds Nechemya Weberman, Satmar Hasidic leader, guilty of molesting teenage girl he was paid to counsel - GUILTY 59 TIMES!

Weberman is facing a maximum of 25 years on prison of the top count alone, prolonged sexual conduct against a child - GUILTY 59 TIMES!!!

A Brooklyn jury found Nechemya Weberman - a prominent figure in the Satmar Hasidic community - guilty Monday of sexually abusing a rebellious young girl he was paid to counsel.

Weberman was convicted on one count of Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the First Degree, 12 counts of Criminal Sexual Act in the Second Degree, two counts of Criminal Sexual Act in the Third Degree, 18 counts of Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree, 25 counts of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, and one count of Endangering the Welfare of a Child. The top count of Course of Sexual Conduct Against a Child in the First Degree carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. He faces a total of 117 years. Weberman was remanded and he will be sentenced before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice John Ingram on January 9 at 10:00 AM.

The verdict came after an explosive two-week trial, where customs of the strict Williamsburg-based sect were aired in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He is facing a maximum of 25 years on prison of the top count alone, prolonged sexual conduct against a child.

The main evidence against the 54-year-old counselor was testimony from the victim, who turned 18 last week. During four brutal days of testimony and cross-examination, the striking young woman recounted how she was forced to perform oral sex and reenact porn scenes during closed-door counseling sessions that started in 2007, when she was 12.

Her yeshiva referred her to Weberman because she flouted her sect's strict modesty rules and asked probing questions about the existence of God.

But instead of guidance, she was molested at every opportunity.

"I wanted to die," she testified of her torment.

Prosecutors offered no physical evidence of the sexual activity that took place inside Weberman's home office, which the trial revealed had been a flop house for other wayward teenage girls.

The counselor took the stand in his own defense, insisting he "never ever" inappropriately touched the teen. But he was forced to acknowledge that funds from his charity were used to pay for his kids' tuition and buy lingerie.

The defense team claimed the victim's accusations were fueled by revenge, after Weberman teamed up with her father to film her in bed with a former boyfriend - then used the footage to get the boyfriend arrested for statutory rape.

That case was dropped shortly before she made her complaint against Weberman.

The high-profile case was rocked by allegations that Weberman and his henchmen tried to intimidate the accuser. Then during the trial, three men illegally snapped her photo while she was on the witness stand, and it ended up being posted online.

The sordid, soap opera-like revelations in court rocked the insular Satmar Sect, which derives its practices from a strict interpretation of Judaism. The trial was also a major challenge to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, who came under criticism for his handling of sex abuse cases in the Orthodox Jewish community

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/satmar-leader-weberman-guilty-molesting-girl-article-1.1217092#ixzz2EgQQCCq7

Weberman teen abuse trial questions Jewish group's customs

Webernan aka the ANIMAL in Court

 If Weberman had a guilty look in his eyes, the jurors never saw it. He didn’t look at them once as the prosecutor gave graphic details Thursday of the 88 counts of sexual torment he allegedly wrought upon a teenage girl he was paid to help.

If Nechemya Weberman had a guilty look in his eyes, the jurors never saw it. He didn’t look at them once as the prosecutor gave graphic details Thursday of the 88 counts of sexual torment he allegedly wrought upon a teenage girl he was paid to help.

If the jury finds Weberman guilty — now that lawyers have wrapped their case — the leaders of the insular Satmar Hasidic sect to which he belongs must ask themselves the same questions that dogged the Catholic Church in the wake of its own pedophilia scandals.

They must ask, did we enable him? Do our methods of reigning in rebellious young girls run counter to American law? Do we deny these girls freedoms they are entitled to, treating them as prisoners despite more than a century of hard-fought victories by women’s rights activists?

Instead, it seems this Williamsburg-based sect is operating under its own rules, some of which run counter to the law.

Satmar girls who break the sect’s stringent rules for modesty and behavior are sent by rabbis, teachers or their parents to “therapists” for “counseling” — more like one-on-one reeducation camps.

At the age of 12, Weberman’s beautiful blond accuser dared show her girlfriends a dance video from the family’s computer, a no-no for Satmars forbidden TV, radio and nonbusiness uses of the Internet.

“She lived in an insular, male-dominated society that forbade any contact with the outside world,” prosecutor Linda Weinman told the jury Thursday. “Accept your fate. Never question authority.”

The girl, already in the sights of the Satmar “modesty committee” — known to enter girls’ rooms to seize offending cell phones and clothing — was sent by her principal, Weberman’s cousin, for “therapy.”

Her counselor’s qualifications? He had been a worker in a pants factory, after leaving school in the 11th grade.

Oh, and he had also been a driver, albeit for the sect’s then-Grand Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum.

Weberman wasn’t a licensed therapist at all.

But that was considered a positive thing, since Orthodox Jews believe any Jewish person who informs police or government agencies about a fellow Jew is a loathed informant, a “moser.”

Licensed therapists are required by law to report child molestation and domestic violence incidents.

As a nonlicensed therapist, Weberman could keep anything he heard within the Satmar community to himself.

Padlocking this girl even tighter in his grip, the young woman testified she would be expelled from her school if she tried to leave “therapy.” Her parents were forced to pay Weberman $150 an hour for this service.

But for three years, starting in March 2007 when she was 12 years old, he grotesquely manhandled her young body, Weinman told the jury as Weberman looked into a corner of the courtroom.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” he allegedly told the girl.

She finally told a licensed therapist outside the community , who promptly reported Weberman to authorities.

Why hadn’t the alleged victim reported it to the top rabbis?

“I didn’t think they would believe me,” she testified in court.

 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/molloy-teen-abuse-trial-questions-jewish-group-customs-article-1.1215238#ixzz2ELP9gutQ

Brooklyn criminal courtroom resembles nightclub as members of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect show up to support Nechemya Weberman

Weberman aka THE ANIMAL in court today

Weberman took the stand to defend himself against charges that he sexually molested a beautiful Satmar teenager while he was supposed to be her therapist. Lubavitcher and Modern Orthodox Jews showed up to support the woman, sequestered in another room, quietly celebrating, if you could call it that, her 18th birthday.

With a costumed crowd pressing against velvet ropes begging to be let in, the Brooklyn criminal courtroom resembled a nightclub Wednesday.

The iconoclastic garb of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect was unmistakable as members showed up to support Nechemya Weberman when he took the stand to defend himself against charges that he sexually molested a beautiful Satmar teenager while he was supposed to be her therapist. Lubavitcher and Modern Orthodox Jews showed up to support the woman, sequestered in another room, quietly celebrating, if you could call it that, her 18th birthday.

Ladies in wigs and hats, with long skirts and arms and legs covered, sat apart from the men in dark suits, wearing yarmulkes, their hair in forelocks, as the jury as diverse as Brooklyn itself stared out over the insular community and got a lesson in Hasidism 101 from the testimony.

Like the fact that what you wear is no joke, as the alleged victim found out when she began to break the dress code with short skirts and sheer tights, and when she began to share pop songs like “Love Can Kill You” and sneak off to Hollywood movies.

The recalcitrant teen had come to the attention of an internal committee of men called the Va’ad Hatznius, which helps enforce modesty rules — among 613 commandments Satmar members believe must be followed.

According to the testimony of another young woman who'd taken the stand Wednesday morning, you don't want to mess with Va’ad Hatznius.

“Isn't it true that masked individuals came into your bedroom in the middle of the night and seized your cell phone?” no-nonsense prosecutor Kevin O'Donnell asked Baila Gluck. “And that this is the type of action Va’ad Hatznius takes when Satmar don't follow the rules? And wasn't it traumatic for you?” Yes. Yes. And yes.

But it was nothing like the trauma Weberman's accuser said she suffered as he allegedly forced her to perform oral sex and recreate scenes from porn movies. She had been ordered by her religious school's principal, Weberman's cousin, to go to Weberman for therapy, which he had no license to provide. And her parents were forced to pay for it.

If she didn't get therapy, she would be thrown out of the school, Weberman admitted. Though Weberman adamantly denied ever molesting her, the girl says the abuse went on for three years.

A young Satmar woman dressed modestly but wearing green nail polish against her husband's wishes told the Daily News, “I don't have time to come here, but I'm compelled to listen for myself. I need to know the truth.”

The victim of molestation for five years as a child, Debbie Teller set up the website adkanenough.com — Enough is Enough — to post names of sex offenders in the Orthodox community worldwide. Since the Weberman trial began, her site’s visitors have spiked by the thousands.

Sex abuse isn't greater within the Hasidic community than outside, said social worker Carole Sher, who helps run the SOURI Hotline, Support Orthodox Victims of Rape and Incest.

But there's been a lot of covering up in the past. But now with more receptive rabbis and greater communication, that's changing.”

The Brooklyn jury learned that if a Jewish person reported another Jewish person to the police, they would be labeled a “moser” — informer — and ostracized as strongly as a Mob rat.

With the Internet, the thin black line of silence in the religious community has been erased, agreed Joey DiAngello, perhaps one of the most colorful people attending the trial.

Born Yoel Deutsch into the Satmar sect 32 years ago, DiAngello, a heavy-metal drummer with Slayer and Iron Maiden tatoos on his arms, told The News he was raped at the age of seven in a mikvah, or public bath. He's set up the Facebook pages War on Vaad Hatznius and Survivors for Justice.

“I've gotten tweets from people calling me a self-hating Jew, but I really want to help Jewish kids in the same situation I was in,” he says. “It's like metal. I have something to say, and if you don't like it, I'll turn it up even louder.”

 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/molloy-weberman-courtroom-resembles-nightclub-article-1.1214343#ixzz2EEeXLeR3

I was a frum innocent little girl just like your daughter

http://mypureneshama.tumblr.com/

 I really want this blog to be a healing happy place for myself and whoever is reading which is why I am hesistant to post what this woman wrote but I want to give myself a voice and a chance to fight back against society’s perception of what I went through. So I am going to post what this woman wrote and I know it is a painful thing to read. I got so angry and sad when I read it. I just have to remember that she is saying this stuff from a naive, uneducated and lucky place. I don’t think she is intentionally being cruel. I’m sorry if this is going to cause anyone undue pain.

Leah’s words -“What I said is, A Weberman type WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED ACCESS to my child. If I took my child to a therapist, it would be a WOMAN (and as you well know, women are very unlikely to sexually molest young girls), I would attend sessions with my daughter/wait outside, etc. Therefore, I don’t think THIS TYPE OF ABUSE would happen to my family. Plus I have told my daughter about sickos and she knows to tell me if an adult, even a teacher, does something inappropriate. I think the parents here made many mistakes, and bear responsibility for putting their child in danger. And no, I don’t believe that Satmar-type communities are filled with dopes. I suspect that there was something very wrong/off with this particular family, and that is one reason Weberman preyed on the kid.”

Everything you said is the exact reason how so many children are getting abused. I hope you said what you did because of a lack of knowledge not of sensitivity. Everybody thinks that a ‘weberman’ has no access to their child. I can’t even describe to you the pain I feel upon reading that. You are condemning all parents of abused children. You can’t imagine the grief, self-blame and blinding pain that parents of abused children go through. I want to clarify so you can be aware and have a clearer picture of how the majority of abuse in the frum community actually happens. I also want to clarify so that people who think the way you presently do can understand how the parents of abused children love, care and protect their children just as much as you do if not more. They are not bad parents. Quite the opposite.

I was a frum innocent little girl. Just like your daughter. I was the oldest in my family. I was adored. I said Modeh Ani every morning twice. Once when I woke up and once in school. I was that happy to be awake every day. My teachers loved me I had friends and I was always happy. My parents were the center of my existence. They adored me. I was their pride and joy. And if you love something, you protect it with your life. If you would have asked my mother years ago she would have definitely agreed with you and maybe have even be more condemning of the parents of ‘Off The Derech’ children. Whispering questions like how could their parents have let this happen while shooting dark glances in their direction. She was and still is the pinnacle of a concerned and slightly overprotective mother.

 I got countless speeches about the sick people in the world and how I should come right to my mother if anyone says or does anything remotely inappropriate. She defined clearly from a very young age how important it is to be open and honest with her about these things. She was crazy protective. She never let me go to my friends houses unless she knew the family extremely well. I remember throwing tantrums about how everyone is having a sleepover by a certain girls house and my mother refused to let me go because something about the girls older brother was weird. My mother insisted on walking me to and from my bus stop everyday even when I was old enough to be embarrassed by it. She stayed in the doctors room by my yearly checkups even when I was begging her to leave.

 Every time we went shopping she would grip my hand the entire time and not let go until I was back in the car. Once I got distracted by something pretty in a shop we were in and let go of her hand to get a better look at it. When I found her two minutes later (not more) she was speaking to the security guard with tears in her eyes about shutting down the store until I was found. I was like ‘Ma what are you doing? I’m ten years old – I was right behind you’ and she just hugged me for way too long. I remember being so embarrassed because I was way too old to be seen hugging my mother in public. I was never allowed around any males alone, EVER. Not even my cousins. I used to think she was paranoid but now I know I would do the same for my daughter.

I was sexually abused. Badly, for many years. It was by a female. My babysitter.

 We knew the family really well. This is why I didn’t tell my mother. One night before all this started I walked passed my parents room and I heard my mother crying so I stopped and listened in the way that little girls do, she was on the phone to a friend of hers and she was crying because there was a playgroup that was found out to have been molesting children for years and another one of her close friends sons had went there years before. I so badly wanted to protect her from any sort of pain like she always did for me so when it happened the first time I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I loved her that much. After that I had already been victimized and predators know how to keep their victims under their control.

Read up on the psychology behind it. It is a rare phenomenon when a victim breaks the cycle. My head was put in a bath tub and held there until I nearly drowned and when it was taken out I was told that if I ever told anyone then she would do that to my little brother but she would keep his head in. I was old enough to understand the term ‘drown your baby brother and make it look like a mistake’. And yes I thought it might be a possibility that my parents could save me. But it wasn’t worth the risk. I loved my baby brother too much. To this day I wonder if she would’ve drowned him had I show any hesitation. I was just an eight year old girl protecting her family from a nightmare that was too painful to share. It wasn’t worth it.

I have tears streaming down my face as I write this. I can’t remember the last time I cried like this. I’m sobbing over this laptop. I have never ever spoken of any of this outside of therapy. Reading you proscribe my parents as bad parents has been singularly painful for me. There was nothing ‘wrong’ or ‘off’ about my family. Me and my younger siblings were the prettiest, best dressed, happiest little children you have ever seen. If you saw us on the street you would probably glance enviously at my perfect little family, with our bright blond hair, little dimples and bright blue eyes. My young parents were everyone’s idea of perfect. My father learned my Chumash homework with me every night. For years. Point is that people rarely have parents as good as mine are. Leah, If there is such a thing as a Parent Award, you, Leah would be the first to give it to them.

I’m not saying that it didn’t change anything, my perfect childhood outside of the abuse probably gave me the strength to get through this all. When as a teenager I finally told my parents what had happened it broke them as people, but as parents they pulled themselves together and have been here ever since helping me pick up the pieces of my shattered soul. I can honestly say if it wasn’t for their strength I, the little girl who once was exactly like your own little girl would be lying in a grave with the whole world wondering what had happened. Leah I truly hope you never need to know the inhumane amounts of courage and strength it takes people to accept and love their children despite all the anger, drugs, boys etc. I hope you never need to find out how identical you are as a mother to mine and how similar I once was to your own little girl.