How many women remember the Kobe Bryant case and don’t file a rape charge? “Sexual assault has always been one of the lowest reported crimes,” Steinhauser said. “There’s this mentality of blame the victim, but victims do enough blaming of themselves. So many victims decide it’s not worth it.”

The Legacy Of The Kobe Bryant Rape Case

by Lindsay Gibbs 

 In this July 18, 2003, file photo, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and his wife, Vanessa, hold hands during a news conference at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

On June 30, 2003, Kobe Bryant arrived at the Cordillera Lodge and Spa in Edwards, Colorado. After a frustrating season that saw the Los Angeles Lakers fail to win a fourth straight championship, Bryant was in town for an operation on his knee.

A 19-year-old concierge at the hotel showed the superstar and his security team to their rooms, and caught his eye. Bryant, a new father of a six-month-old daughter, made small talk with the blonde, and once they arrived at his room, he took her aside and requested that she come back later to give him a private tour of the hotel. She obliged, and after the tour and mild flirtations, Bryant invited her into his hotel room.

Just five minutes later, the woman exited the room, disheveled and reportedly distraught. Her underwear was bloody, as was Bryant’s shirt.

She told her friend, a bellboy at the hotel, about the encounter that night, and after making sure the woman got home safely, the bellboy went home and told his father. The next day, after recounting the incident to her mother, the woman reported it to police.

Whether or not Bryant and the woman engaged in sexual activity that night is not in question — Bryant admitted to cheating on his wife, Vanessa. But the woman he claimed to have committed adultery with said she did not consent to that activity.

And thus, those five minutes became the center of one of the most high-profile rape cases of all time. As Jeffrey Scott Shapiro put it in his book, Kobe Bryant: The Game Of His Life, the case came down to two words: yes or no.

Bryant is set to play his final NBA game on Wednesday. Tickets are going for $25,000, and he’s being celebrated and honored by athletes and movie stars, rap artists and clothing brands. His career as a basketball player certainly merits that. In 20 years with the Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant won five NBA championships, one MVP award, and was named to the NBA All-Star team 18 times. He is, without a doubt, a legend.

But as fun as it is to reflect on his career and the mark he left on the sport, it’s also important to remember what happened off the court. Though the criminal charges were ultimately dropped after 15 months and the civil case was settled behind closed doors, the Kobe Bryant rape case left behind a legacy of victim blaming, media sensationalism, and image repair that still influences society — and other high-profile rape cases — to this day.

Victim Blaming

 

It didn’t take long for a bonafide media circus to descend upon the small Colorado town. On July 2, both the alleged victim and Bryant were taken to the hospital for examinations. There was a small bruise around her neck, and she had tears on her vaginal wall. An arrest warrant was issued for Bryant on July 4th, and on July 18th, charges were filed.

As soon as the charges against Bryant became public, media and fans alike honed in on the alleged victim. Who was this young girl who had the audacity to threaten one of the greatest, most well-respected athletes on the planet with life in prison?

She was a sexually active teenager who had attempted suicide twice and been briefly hospitalized for mental illness. She was an aspiring singer who had once tried out for American Idol. She had a lingering crush on her ex-boyfriend. So very quickly, a picture was painted of a fame-hungry, unstable woman who would do anything for attention.

Kobe Bryant, left, and his attorney Pamela Mackey, center.

Unfortunately, narratives like this seem to emerge almost any time a woman accuses a famous man of violence. But what made the Bryant case notable was the lengths to which the defense team would go to encourage that victim-blaming narrative.

“In the Kobe Bryant case, it was abominable how the accuser was treated. Everyone was at fault,” Mark Shaw, an attorney and author who covered the case for ESPN and USA Today, told ThinkProgress. “This poor woman, they wore her down, and it happened from the first hearings.”

The preliminary hearing in October 2003 was supposed to merely be a chance for the judge to decide whether there was enough evidence to require a trial. But Bryant’s attorney, Pamela Mackey, used it as a chance to smear the alleged victim’s reputation.

Not only did Mackey use the alleged victim’s name a staggering six times during the hearing, but when she was presented with the woman’s vaginal injuries, Mackey used the victim’s sexual history against her. The high-powered lawyer brought the hearing to a screeching halt, asking, “Could it be that [the alleged victim’s] injuries were caused by having sex with three men in three days?”

As Shapiro wrote in his book, Mackey’s tactic was an effective one, because that became the story of the day, and not the evidence displayed by Deputy District Attorney Gregg Crittenden and Eagle County Sheriff’s Detective Doug Winters.

And that evidence, such as the retelling of the statements the alleged victim gave to officers the day after the attack, deserved attention.

When Bryant began groping her, the woman said she tried to flee but the athlete barred her way and grabbed her by the neck, Winters said. “She was afraid that he was going to choke her.”

Then, the woman said, Bryant turned her around, pushed her against a chair, pulled down her panties and raped her. She tearfully said “no” twice but was ignored, Winters said. At one point, Bryant “stated that he liked Vail, Colo.,” he said.

Five minutes later, it was over, Winters said, and Bryant made her kiss his genitals. Then he told her to “go clean up.”

Just days before the criminal case went to trial, the alleged victim decided to stop cooperating and the charges were dropped. Up until that moment, she had been put through the ringer. She had friends, acquaintances, and even strangers accept money from the tabloids or gifts from television producers to tell stories — some the truth with a spin to it, others outright lies. Photos of the alleged victim were also leaked and plastered all over magazines in the supermarket. Even the Eagle County court contributed to the onslaught, by inadvertently making private court documents public.

As Shaw wrote at the time, “with her identity known, her past sex life revealed, her mental state common knowledge, and her life in shambles due to constant anguish about the motive behind the charges, it is no wonder that she threw in the towel.”

How many women remember the Kobe Bryant case and don’t file a rape charge?

 

Because the case received so much coverage, everyone, even those not paying close attention, saw what happened to the alleged victim. It’s nearly impossible to measure that impact. According to Shapiro’s book, however, there are other women who had similar encounters with Bryant — one in particular who was able to escape before an assault occurred — who wouldn’t cooperate with the Colorado trial because of how the alleged victim in that case was treated.

In the immediate aftermath of the hearing, it was no surprise that sexual assault reporting declined dramatically at the alleged victim’s school, the University of Northern Colorado.

“How many women remember the Kobe Bryant case and don’t file a rape charge?” Shaw said.

It’s hard to tell if this case impacted national reporting statistics, but 68 percent of rapes still go unreported. And it’s worth noting that in other cases where a high-profile athlete — such as Greg Hardy, Ben Roethlisberger, and Patrick Kane — has been accused of violence against women, the alleged victims have been smeared in a similar way. In the Kane case, it was leaked that traces of DNA from other men were found in the alleged victim’s underwear. Hardy’s alleged victim had her drug use and relationship with rapper Nelly dragged through the media. One of the two women who accused Roethlisberger of rape was said to have a “history of using sex and lies to get what she wanted.” None of these women decided to cooperate with or pursue criminal charges.

One positive, if there is such a thing, to come out of the Bryant case was the improved rape shield laws in Colorado. Rape shield laws are supposed to protect the victim’s identity in cases and limit the ability for her past sexual activity to be brought into evidence. According to Karen Steinhauser, a Family Law and Criminal Defense attorney in Colorado, at the time of the Bryant hearing, rape shield laws didn’t apply to preliminary hearings in the state, which is why Mackey could push the envelope so far. Now they do.

However, rape shield laws are still far from perfect, and many still allow judges plenty of loopholes to permit an alleged victim’s sexual history into evidence. Linda Seabrook, general counsel for Futures Without Violence, a nonprofit that aims to end domestic violence and sexual assault, said those loopholes perpetuate the mistrust of the judicial system. And that mistrust will lead fewer victims to seek justice.

“Sexual assault has always been one of the lowest reported crimes,” Steinhauser said. “There’s this mentality of blame the victim, but victims do enough blaming of themselves. So many victims decide it’s not worth it.”

The Media’s Ability To Perpetuate Rape Myths

 

While Bryant’s defense team and the tabloids were certainly responsible for festering the victim-blaming culture of the case, the mainstream media itself didn’t do much to squelch it.

“The media in the Bryant case was as guilty as anyone else,” Shaw said. “They were enamored by Kobe, a good looking star, married with a baby. They wanted to get an interview with him, and the poor girl was left to suffer.”

Renae Franiuk, a professor of psychology at Aurora University and an avid sports fan, watched the media coverage of the case with interest, and noticed that a lot of it seemed to be slanted against the alleged victim. She was curious as to whether she was just overly sensitive to it due to her job, or if it was an actual problem, so she set out to do a study.

For the study, Franiuk honed in on rape myths, which are “generalized and widely held beliefs about sexual assault that serve to trivialize the sexual assault or suggest that a sexual assault did not actually occur.”

She then divided the myths into standard common categories, and studied both articles and headlines about the Bryant case for endorsements or challenges of these myths. She also studied the articles for positive and negative statements about the alleged victim and Bryant, and headlines for the choice of the word “accuser” versus “alleged victim,” since the former has been proven to elicit sympathy with the accused.

Franiuk’s findings were staggering. First of all, only 13 of the 156 articles studied actually countered rape myths — that is, mentioned how rarely women lie about rape, or how entering a hotel room with a man isn’t the same as consenting to sex with him. On average, there were 1.66 myth-endorsing statements per article, with over 65 percent of the articles having at least one endorsing statement.

Additionally, 27 percent of the articles studied had positive comments about Bryant as a person or an athlete, while only 5 percent of the articles had positive statements about the victim as a person. And whereas 42.3 percent of the articles questioned the victim’s honesty, only 7.7 percent questioned Kobe’s.

Though less extreme, a similar pattern was discovered in headlines, which are often the only information readers take in. Almost 10 percent of the headlines studied endorsed rape myths. Headlines used the word “accuser” 23 percent of the time, compared to about 1 percent each for “alleged victim” or “victim.” Overall, 11 percent of the headlines were pro-Bryant, while only 5.2 percent pro-alleged victim.

Why does this even matter? Well, Franiuk’s study accounted for that too, and found that after reading articles that endorsed rape myths, people were far more likely to side with the accused than the alleged victim. Whether they intended to or not, the media shaped the public’s perception of the case.

Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, right, holds up balloons that his family brought out to him during a ceremony to celebrate Bryant becoming third on the NBA all-time scoring list.

“The rape myths perpetuated in the media are a reflection of women’s inferior status in our culture and our culture’s defensive reaction to a heinous crime,” she wrote in the study. “Moreover, rape myths in the media teach rape myths to those who do not already hold them, strengthen rape myths in those who already do, and trigger rape myths in those who are ready to use them.”

While there haven’t been similar studies on recent rape cases, there is reason to believe that many of the problems in Franiuk’s 2008 study are still present in media today. When NHL star Patrick Kane was accused of rape last fall, many reporters chose to focus on his athletic talents while perpetuating rape myths and spreading unsubstantiated rumors about the alleged victim. Meanwhile, when alleged victims don’t go through with pressing charges or an undisclosed civil settlement is reached, athletes such as Ben Roethlisberger, who was accused of sexual assault by two women, are allowed to let their performance in their chosen sport serve as redemption.

“These people believing these myths don’t want people to be sexually assaulted, and, ironically, that’s why they don’t believe the women,” Franiuk said. “It’s easier to believe the myths because you don’t want to believe that sexual assault is possible, but then that disbelief just makes the problem of sexual assault worse.”

The only way to stop this cycle, according to Franiuk, is by getting educated about the issue and speaking up about it. Everyone needs to be educated about both healthy sex and sexual assault at a young age, and journalists in particular need to know how to report it. (There are great resources available for reporters on the topic.) Once educated, they need to be outspoken against it — Franiuk particularly mentioned the significance of Terry Bradshaw passionately speaking out against Hardy last fall.

“We need media members to be more unapologetically vocal about this,” she said.

There Is Life After A Rape Accusation

 

Not even 24 hours after the charges were dropped in the Bryant rape case, the media had moved away from questions of guilt or innocence, motive and opportunity, and on to more pressing matters: Would Kobe ever be able to repair his image?

Despite the fact that the dust from the criminal case hadn’t even settled yet, it was a legitimate question. After all, both McDonalds and Sprite had suspended relationships with the superstar after the charges were filed, and even if people didn’t pay attention to the sordid details of the case — the alleged victim’s blood on his shirt, the vaginal tearing — there was still the fact that he had cheated on his wife. Bryant was no longer the NBA’s ultimate family man.

Nearly 13 years later, it’s safe to say that Kobe’s image is just fine. Last year, he was 10th on the Forbes list of highest-paid athletes, and between broadcasting and endorsements, coaching and management, his future is filled with opportunities all over the world.

“He’s got real international cachet and popularity,” Bob Dorfman, editor of the Sports Marketers Scouting Report, told CNN.

These days, most people seem to remember the infamous $4 million “apology ring” that Bryant bought his wife after the charges became public more than they remember the accusations. People remember that the charges were dropped, but they don’t remember the statement that Kobe released when they were:

Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.

Of course, Bryant’s privilege has a lot to do with how quickly he has bounced back, but it’s also worth noting that this theory — that women accuse high-profile athletes of rape or domestic violence to become rich and famous and destroy the life of the accused — doesn’t actually pan out in reality.

While Jameis Winston — who was accused of raping a fellow student at Florida State University — has gone on to be an NFL star, his alleged victim had to drop out of school due to the abuse she received. Hardy’s ex-girlfriend recently said that she’s had to move twice, change her phone number multiple times, and even consider changing her name due to the harassment she has received. Hardy, meanwhile, was signed with the Dallas Cowboys even after the domestic abuse allegations, and is reportedly only having a hard time finding a spot on an NFL team now because he was often late to practice. Kane’s alleged victim reportedly had to relocate as well, while Kane is winning awards for his play this season.

It’s impossible to know what Bryant’s present status would be if his rape case had gone differently — if the accuser’s past had not been viciously put on trial, if the media hadn’t irresponsibly condoned rape myths, and if Bryant and his alleged victim had both gotten their day in court.

 Barack Obama stands with Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.

There’s also no way of knowing what would happen if the charges had been brought today.

Ever since the video of NFL running back Ray Rice punching out his then-fiance in an Atlantic City elevator became public, the media has been slightly more careful with the language it uses when talking about alleged victims and violence against women. There is also an increased awareness about the inadequacies of the justice system, and more pressure on leagues such as the NBA to independently investigate and punish the personal conduct of its players. So if Bryant was charged with sexual assault presently, it’s likely the NBA would be under pressure to take disciplinary action.

However, that’s no guarantee that things would have turned out differently. After all, the victim-blaming tactics used in Kobe’s case, both by the defense team and the media, have been utilized in big-time cases recently, and the results have been similarly successful for the athletes.

All we know for sure is that 13 years ago, Bryant’s alleged victim was forced to move out of her hometown due to safety concerns. She was last seen during the civil case, married and pregnant, and hasn’t been heard of in public since, except for the occasional rumor on the underbelly of the internet.

Meanwhile, Bryant is now a father of two. He and Vanessa briefly filed for divorce, but have since reunited. Kobe was able to finish out his career with the Lakers, winning two more NBA championships and climbing to third on the list of all-time scorers in NBA history. He’s an icon of the sport, and of our culture.

But as the legend bids goodbye, those close to the case can’t help but wonder, “What if?”

“Every time I see Kobe Bryant on television playing basketball, I think about how lucky he is,” Shaw said. “Based on the evidence I knew about… he should be in prison.”

http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2016/04/13/3768242/kope-bryant-rape-case-legacy/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&utm_term=1&utm_content=53&elqTrackId=89e7ca25798d4a11bbdf455d77ac02db&elq=e8f4cdb9056043f4996c314c337140f7&elqaid=29796&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=5427

"So here and now, we must as a community make a choice. When rabbis like Rabbi Pruzansky claim that sexual assault is not a problem in the Jewish community, we must say that they are wrong. When they imply that victims are to blame, we must say that they are wrong. When they use their positions of power to protect perpetrators and hurt victims by spreading lies about victims of sexual assault, we must say that they are wrong"....

Avigail Gordon, PhD

Steven Pruzansky

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#Not In My Name: A Response to Rabbi Steven Pruzansky

 by shelfconsciousness

 

In a recent blog post, R’ Steven Pruzansky bemoaned the loss of traditional values that have led to casual sex on college campuses and increasing awareness of the concerns of transgender people. R’ Pruzansky fears a threat to communal stability, a challenge which undercuts education and morality. But the threat appears to be Rabbi Pruzansky himself, who takes a position of authority in his community and uses it to spread myths and vitriolic rhetoric that teaches nothing but hate. While this hateful speech is itself counter to the mission of Judaism, it is the statement of falsehood as fact that is most deeply troubling.

His information about victims of rape, for example, is riddled with errors. He cites a statistic of “10-20 annually on campuses with many thousands of students” in colleges “deemed the worst offenders.” It is unclear where his statistic comes from, as he fails to cite a reference source, but recent data suggest that one in five women and one in sixteen men will be sexually assaulted during their time in college.[1] Perhaps his statistic is based on reported assaults, and simply doesn’t account for the more than 90% of assaults on campus that go unreported.[2] He also writes about the reasons behind women’s claims of sexual assault, again without providing any foundation. While Rabbi Pruzansky strongly implies that many claims are false (the result of regretted consensual sexual encounters or retaliation for sexual rejection – two of the most damaging myths about sexual assault claims), a variety of studies have found that only roughly 2% of claims of sexual assault are fabricated; the vast majority are based on real assaults.[3]

Rabbi Pruzansky suggests that women are victimized because they are sexually active. He cites his prior experience as an attorney as proof that women know “right away” when they have been raped, usually perpetrators are strangers, and charges are often filed. He states that he is “quite familiar with the literature about the psyche of the rape victim” before going on to say that he doesn’t “buy any of it.” Whatever literature he is familiar with, he is clearly unaware that sexual activity is not a risk factor for sexual victimization in this population, though previous sexual assault is,[4] as is lack of sex education.[5] He is clearly unaware that most assaults are carried out by intimate partners or acquaintances,[6] most assaults are never reported,[7] charges are frequently not filed, and 98% of offenders will never spend a single day in jail.[8] This flawed perception of sexual assault – the myth that all rapists are a “stranger in the alley” – contributes to Rabbi Pruzansky’s incredulity that women would continue to interact with their abusers, even in loving ways. But this is a recognized fact in psychological literature, and is most common in cases of intimate partner violence (which Rabbi Pruzansky seems also to be unaware of, given his insistence that abstinence until marriage will prevent assaults altogether). He also denies sexual assault exists as a problem in the Jewish world, which demonstrates forcefully that he is either blind or willfully ignorant of the realities of the community he claims to lead.

Most distressing of all, Rabbi Pruzansky places the blame for sexual victimization squarely on the victim.

His narrative is predicated on a series of dangerous falsehoods – that women would not go to college if assault were such a problem (requiring women to choose between education and victimization), that they would not be assaulted if they were abstinent (requiring women to “control” men’s supposedly inevitably violent sexual appetites), and that they claim rape when rejected (implying that women are both hyper-emotional and malicious, willing to “cry rape” when their sensitive feelings are wounded). None of this accounts for the truly responsible party in any rape – the rapist. Rape is an act of choice, and any person familiar with the literature will tell you that rape is about power, and not about sex. Men do not rape women because they are biologically inclined to sex without intimacy (a stereotype which does a disservice to men as well as women), or because women are sexually promiscuous. Those men who do rape women do so because it is a way to assert their power over women. It’s about power. So is Rabbi Pruzansky’s post. And in its own way, it is just as dangerous.

There is more in the post to criticize and debunk – his wildly unsubstantiated statements on transgender people and mental illness, his imposition of his own experience of a 15 year old male-bodied person’s sexuality onto others, his suggestion that separate is indeed equal and anyone who says different is a bully, his determination to take complex issues and reduce them to the least nuanced possible interpretation. But more than attempting to identify each piece of misinformation, we want to draw attention to the larger problem, which is the irresponsibility of Rabbi Pruzansky’s using his influence to publicize such falsehoods in the first place.

Rabbi Pruzansky leads a thriving community synagogue, participates actively in the administration of the Rabbinical Council of America, and has a central role in the Beth Din of America. He is not a small-town outsider voicing a fringe opinion. He wields power, and he is using that power to demean and disenfranchise women, to cast doubt on their claims (already infrequently made and infrequently believed) of sexual violence, and to make them responsible for their own protection. He is using that power to deny that a rape culture exists, even as his post demonstrates certain features of rape culture – such as the view that women make up rape claims when they are rejected, or are victims only because they were intoxicated or sexually active (a practice known as slut-shaming).

In recent decades, the Jewish community has made some strides in responding to the rampant child sexual abuse that has lived in our midst like a cancer. It has done so in part by calling to task the rabbis who protected perpetrators at their victims’ expense. It has done so in part because prominent rabbis publicly stated that protecting the weak was more important than protecting the community’s reputation, more important than any other factor. It has done so because prominent rabbis used their influence to protect those who could not protect themselves. It is time for our community to take such a stand when it comes to the assault of women, as well.

So here and now, we must as a community make a choice. When rabbis like Rabbi Pruzansky claim that sexual assault is not a problem in the Jewish community, we must say that they are wrong. When they imply that victims are to blame, we must say that they are wrong. When they use their positions of power to protect perpetrators and hurt victims by spreading lies about victims of sexual assault, we must say that they are wrong. They cannot be allowed to represent us to each other and to the world when their views are so antithetical to the Jewish values of respect and understanding for our fellow men, and more radically, so antithetical to truth itself. And if they continue to do so, we must cease to give them power by allowing them to be leaders of our community.

https://avigailgordon.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/not-in-my-name-a-response-to-rabbi-steven-pruzansky/_________________________________________________________________
[1] Krebs, C. P., Lindquist, C., Warner, T., Fisher, B., & Martin, S. (2007). The campus sexual assault (CSA) study: Final report. Retrieved from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf
[2] Fisher, B., Cullen, F., & Turner, M. (2000). The sexual victimization of college women (NCJ 182369). Retrieved from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf
[3] Lonsway, K. A., Archambault, J., & Lisak, D. (2009). False reports: Moving beyond the issue to successfully investigate and prosecute non-stranger sexual assault. The Voice, 3(1), 1-11. Retrieved from the National District Attorneys Association: http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/the_voice_vol_3_no_1_2009.pdf; Heenan, M., & Murray, S. (2006). Study of reported rapes in Victoria 2000-2003: Summary research report. Retrieved from the State of Victoria (Australia), Department of Human Services: http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/644152/StudyofReportedRapes.pdf
[4] Acierno, R., Resnick, H., Kilpatrick, D. G., Saunders, B., & Best, C. L. (1999). Risk factors for rape, physical assault, and posttraumatic stress disorder in women: Examination of differential multivariate relationships. Journal of anxiety disorders, 13(6), 541-563.
[5] Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I., & Smith, C. (1990). Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors. Child abuse & neglect, 14(1), 19-28.
[6] Breiding, M. J., Chen J., & Black, M. C. (2014). Intimate Partner Violence in the United States — 2010. Retrieved from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control: http://www.cdc. gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cdc_nisvs_ipv_report_2013_v17_single_a.pdf; Myhill, A., & Allen, J. (2002). Rape and sexual assault of women: the extent and nature of the problem. London: Home Office. See also: https://rainn.org/statistics for FBI statistics.
[7] Rennison, C. A. (2002). Rape and sexual assault: Reporting to police and medical attention, 1992-2000 [NCJ 194530]. Retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjs.ojp. usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsarp00.pdf; Myhill, A., & Allen, J. (2002). Rape and sexual assault of women: the extent and nature of the problem. London: Home Office. See also: https://rainn.org/statistics for FBI statistics.
[8] Department of Justice, Felony Defendents in Large Urban Counties: 2009, drawn from https://rainn.org/statistics.

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“Victims of sexual abuse as children want Mr. Silver to have sufficient time away to think about how he abandoned his victims...” the letter says. “Allow Mr. Silver to share in the lifetime of pain that he will now have in common with the victims of childhood sexual abuse.”

EXCLUSIVE: Sheldon Silver accused of blocking bills to aid sexually abused kids after Catholic group hired his longtime aide as a lobbyist! 

Sheldon Silver allegedly stopped pushing for a bill to aid victims of sexual abuse after one of his aides was hired to lobby otherwise.

ALBANY — Disgraced ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was all about pay to play — and sexually abused kids were the ones to pay the price.

Silver stopped pushing for a bill to aid victims of predators after the state Catholic Conference hired his former long-time aide as a lobbyist, says a controversial former lawyer who has taken on the Church.

John Aretakis, of upstate Troy, made the alarming charge in a scathing letter he sent to a judge who in May will sentence Silver on an unrelated federal corruption conviction.

“Mr. Silver met with and looked into the eyes of many victims of clergy sexual abuse, and he promised his continuing support. ... As soon as money lined his pockets, or the pocket of his trusted and loyal allies, he dropped us,” he wrote.

Aretakis, who as a lawyer and victim’s advocate represented a host of clients who sued the Catholic Church over abuse cases, wrote that Silver had been a supporter of a bill to extend the age that an adult who was sexually abused as a kid could bring a case.

The Assembly passed the bill three times — the last time in 2008.

Aretakis wrote that he met with Silver each year between 2004 and 2006 to discuss the bill, which the then-powerful pol “bragged” had passed the Assembly several times with over 100 votes even as it stalled in the Senate.

That changed after the lobbying firm owned by Patricia Lynch, who previously was a longtime Silver aide, took on the Catholic Church as a client, Aretakis wrote. The Church was aggressively lobbying against the bill.

Longtime aide Patricia Lynch was hired to lobby for the Catholic Conference in 2009 — the year after the last time the bill passed the Assembly.

State records show that Patricia Lynch & Associates was first hired by the state Catholic Conference in 2009 — the same year the Democrats briefly took control of the chamber and had considered taking up the measure.
Then-Senate Codes Committee Chairman Eric Schneiderman, now the state attorney general, tried to move the bill out of committee but the vote fell short and the measure died.

The Assembly last passed the bill in 2008, months before Lynch’s firm was hired by the Catholic Conference.

N.Y. SENATE GOP 'TOO BUSY' TO FIX CHILD-RAPE LAW

“Once Ms. Lynch lobbied for the Catholic Conference, Mr. Silver’s support for our bill ended, and the bill did not come out of the Assembly’s Codes Committee ... which as speaker, he controlled,” Aretakis wrote.

Aretakis said he penned the missive in an attempt to counteract any messages of support seeking a light sentence filed on Silver’s behalf by those “that have benefited from Mr. Silver’s largesse over the decades.”

He recommended to the judge that Silver be sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

“Victims of sexual abuse as children want Mr. Silver to have sufficient time away to think about how he abandoned his victims...” the letter says. “Allow Mr. Silver to share in the lifetime of pain that he will now have in common with the victims of childhood sexual abuse.”

The alarming charge, made by a controversial lawyer who has taken on the Catholic Church, was part of a scathing letter written to the judge who will sentence Silver in May on an unrelated federal corruption conviction.

Silver’s lawyer, Joel Cohen, had no comment when reached Friday. A spokesman for Patricia Lynch & Associates also had no comment.

Aretakis in 2008 was suspended from practicing law for a year after being found guilty of professional misconduct. He had been sanctioned by different judges for “frivolous” courtroom conduct, including pushing for a judge’s recusal from a case by alleging the jurist took part in a criminal conspiracy.

Catholic Conference Dennis Poust dismissed Aretakis as a “person who has had a long-time animus and obsession with the Catholic Church and an obsession with the Catholic Church and has not always been truthful to the facts.”

CATHOLIC CHURCH AGAINST LAW FOR SEX ABUSE REPORTING

Poust argued that favoritism toward Lynch by Silver was not the reason the child abuse legislation has not passed the Assembly since 2008.

He said it was because an alternate bill was introduced at the time by then-Assemblyman Vito Lopez that split the Democratic conference in a way where there wasn’t enough votes to pass either proposal

The first bill by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Queens) at the time would have increased to 28, up from 23, the age at which someone abused as a child could bring a suit.

Markey has since amended the bill now so that it would completely eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases.

 

Letter author John Aretakis (l.)

It also would have opened a window to give those who can no longer sue under current law a year to bring a lawsuit — a provision the Catholic Church and other private groups like the Boy Scouts vehemently fought for fear it could bankrupt them.

The Lopez bill, a version of which is now carried by Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Staten Island), did not include the one-year window for past cases.

“I think what (Silver) saw was that there was no consensus in the conference,” Poust said. “That was pretty clear. It passed earlier when there was no alternative bill, but when the legislators were educated, the conference was basically split as to the best way to handle the issue.”

Another obstacle is the Church’s contention that public institutions like schools should be treated the same as the church and other private and nonprofit organizations.

A victim has just 90 days from the incident to file a notice of claim to sue a government entity.

 

Silver likely faces a lengthy prison sentence.

Related Stories

 

Schneiderman steps up

Sex abuse victims press Cuomo on support for law changes

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/fmr-speaker-silver-blocked-aid-abused-kids-lawyer-article-1.2593934

"He says he's getting a heart attack. Know what I do? Continue the ride and let him die. I'm very serious. Be prepared for that. My boys don't care," says Epstein.

Yisroel Belsky & His Partner In Crime Mendel Epstein, In Happier Times For Both Of Them!

BOTH IMPRISONED - one - B 'Yeshivah shel maalah - the other B'Yeshivah shel mattah 

The (criminal) orthodox rabbi(s) with unorthodox criminal solutions

 

It's certainly not the first time that New York's been cursed by mob violence. But a current plague of beatdowns and intimidation is festering in a place you wouldn't expect: the orthodox Jewish community, a society that operates outside of the mainstream and lives by its own rules and laws.

One of those laws most controversial to outsiders? An orthodox woman can be granted a divorce only when her husband allows it. She has to convince him to sign a document called a "get" to release her from marital vows. A vindictive husband can use it to make life for his ex-wife miserable.

"Without a 'get,' she's a chained woman," said Robert Stahl, attorney for Rabbi Mendel Epstein. "She is not allowed in the orthodox community to date, to remarry. If she did, her children would be considered 'mamzers,' which means, basically, bastards."

Community pressure or a stern letter from a rabbi will usually get a husband to come around. When those tactics don't work, there are other solutions, and they come right out of the bloodiest books of the Old Testament.

It's called a "forced get," and it can range from simple scare tactics to heartless violence.

 

And there's one man who can arrange it all for you: Rabbi Mendel Epstein, a respected religious leader and advocate for women in Jewish courts. And he's more than happy to help a client whose sister has a deadbeat husband.

The good rabbi will provide another service, if you know what to ask for.

"You understand what we're talking about is some strategic planning, you know, using a nice word," Epstein says on a recording made by two undercover FBI agents.

"What Mendel Epstein did was when a husband refused to grant his wife a get, he would in some cases, for tens of thousands of dollars, have that man kidnapped and beaten up until he agreed to give his wife a get," said Joseph Gribko, lead prosecutor, U.S. Attorney's Office.

First comes a formal sit-down in Epstein's office. But when Epstein talks about getting the divorce signed, he sounds less like a rabbi and more like a mob boss.

His "get" process is simple.

"I don't want to use secular terms, but what we're doing is basically kidnapping the guy for a couple of hours, beating him up and torturing him and then getting you the get," Epstein says on a recording.

"Now understand, you're lying with a plastic bag around your head, a minute ago you were standing like a normal person. That's fright," Epstein says on the recording. "For 80 percent of the guys, it's over right there. Now you do what we tell you, or it's gonna get worse."

He knows the best way to avoid attracting any nosy cops is to avoid leaving any marks.

"Hopefully there won't be a mark on him," Epstein says. "And basically the reaction of the police is that the guy does not have a mark on him, they don't want to -- it's just some Jewish crazy affair here and they don't get involved."

He also knows how to get what he wants.

"You really want to know? Take an electric cattle prod," Epstein says. "If it can get a bull that weighs five tons to move, you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know."

"That meeting is pretty shocking," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Wolfe. "You see what looks to be a nice old rabbi, he's sitting in his office, he looks very official, and yet the language that he's using, the things he's talking about is something you would expect to hear from somebody very different."

"And now he's lying on the floor, handcuffed and hooded," says Epstein. "And then he says, 'Oh yeah?' And then a guy zaps him and he goes nuts. And we can continue and we can work on other parts of your body, but you're not walking out of here."

But even with all his experience and careful planning, the alleged "Prodfather" doesn't know the woman and her brother are undercover FBI agents wearing body cameras.

Prosecutors claim Epstein has been getting away with it for years.

"Mendel Epstein believed that as long as things were kept within the community, there would not be any repercussions," said lead prosecutor Joseph Gribko. "When people went to the police the police would just wave it off and say it was some crazy Jewish affair."

"He knows that I'm now unfortunately I'm in my 40s and he knows how desperately I want children and he's depriving my mother of her grandchildren," said the female undercover FBI agent in the meeting with Epstein.

The two FBI agents are acting as brother and sister, trying to arrange a beatdown on the woman's husband.
"Drown him. I don't care what happens to him," the female undercover agent says on the recording.

"We've learned on different people how to do this," says Epstein. "The first shot if you land puts him out.

Whether it's a kick to the stomach or a bat, you bat him out, he's down. Once he's down, he's handcuffed and hooded."

This kind of brutality doesn't come cheap.

"To start is $10,000," says Epstein. "The tough guys are probably gonna be in the range of fifty or sixty."
Rabbi Epstein instructs the sister and brother to have her husband show up at a remote warehouse in New Jersey for a real-estate deal he can't refuse.

The plan is to have three other rabbis there armed with divorce papers, and four thugs who'll make sure he signs them -- even if it's in his own blood.

To keep his hands clean, Rabbi Epstein will be miles away in Brooklyn with an ironclad alibi.

"I'm somewhere else. I'll be in a public place, because anything goes on I'm the first stop. So I've got to be with witnesses," says Epstein. "After this is done, they're going to call me up and say 'mazel tov' to me so I know that it's done."

But is all this just tough-guy talk, designed to inflate the rabbi's ego and reputation?

Consider Epstein's final, chilling bit of advice:

"He says he's getting a heart attack. Know what I do? Continue the ride and let him die. I'm very serious. Be prepared for that. My boys don't care," says Epstein.

Cameras are rolling, and the stage is now set for the sting late in the afternoon in Edison, New Jersey. The industrial park is isolated, quiet. The rabbi's gang arrives for last-minute arrangements, hooded, shrouded, spoiling for a fight.

"People dressed in black, people wearing masks, shadowboxing and getting ready and making actual preparations to grab the husband when he arrived and force him, by violence, to give a get," said Gribko.

The undercover FBI agent gets the sting started: "If the guy gets bloody, do it in here so I don't have to have carpets cleaned."
 
Now there's no turning back.

"All right. Lights out."

And with lights out, the FBI SWAT team is all-systems-go.

"They came in and they arrested everybody," said Wolfe.

The feds pull the net on eight orthodox henchmen, bagging the bad guys in beards, hoodies, even catching one thug in a monster mask.

Three rabbis armed with parchment, ink and quills.

And the muscle, armed with rope, hoods and fists.

All of the men are given lengthy jail time. And Rabbi Mendel Epstein is sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

"They were trying to say that this religious activity was protected by the First Amendment, and although there are exceptions for religious activities, effectuating violence on others is not one of them," said Wolfe.

At sentencing, Epstein tells the judge: "I guess I got caught up in my tough-guy image."

"Rabbi Epstein and his family are some of the most loyal, compassionate, smart, caring, community-minded individuals I have ever met," said attorney Robert Stahl. "He was coming from a position of what is good and what is right and what is noble and perhaps it went a little bit too far."

But prosecutors claim the rabbi earned his title as "The Prodfather."

"This was a big operation and it had been operating under the radar for years," said Sarah Wolfe. "Mendel Epstein had a reputation for this sort of thing. He was known in the community as the rabbi who did things 'the other way.'"

ABRAHAM RUBIN COURT PHOTO

 From The Court Record, In Part:

The beth din was held at the Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Ditmas Park. Among the several men present, according to Amsel, were Rabbi Israel Belsky, who taught a class at the yeshiva; Rabbi Martin Wolmark, a respected educator from upstate; and Mendel Epstein.

 

Belsky told Amsel that Rubin had already missed a hearing in December. Because Rubin again failed to show up, Amsel recalled Belsky saying, he'd be tried in absentia and the judges would authorize the use of force to secure a get. "We'll physically give him beatings," Belsky said in Yiddish, according to Amsel.

 

The October 1996 assault left Rubin bruised and bloodied. A passing motorist saw him and took him to the police station, where officers removed his handcuffs and transported him to a hospital. As he recuperated, Rubin set out to compile evidence against the men he suspected were behind the attack.

 

He had an associate make phone calls to some of the men involved, posing as a rabbi claiming that Rubin had contacted him to try to have the get reversed. The caller made it clear that he had no qualms with the kidnapping, and that he was simply hoping to confirm that the get was valid. Rubin's friend Barry Markowitz later filed an affidavit stating that he set up a voice-recording system and listened in on the calls.

 

On November 16 and December 10, 1996, a "Rabbi Wieder" made calls to Belsky. In a transcript of the conversations, translated from Yiddish to English and later filed in court, Belsky describes what he knew about Rubin: "We heard this person is such a rotten animal that there is no equal on this earth." Belsky goes on to explain that he and other rabbis held a tribunal and "the verdict was that there should be compulsion." He stresses that he was not present at the beating but says, "I was in agreement, after many weeks and weeks of consideration and discussing the compulsion itself."

http://crimewatchdaily.com/2016/03/31/the-orthodox-rabbi-with-unorthodox-criminal-solutions/

What is it we have to say about the larger issues of religious fundamentalism, patriarchy’s power, women as catalysts for change, and the current schism in the Jewish world around these very issues?

  Orthodox Women, Escaping

by Susan Reimer-Torn

Published in the Spring 2016 issue of Jewish Currents

It's The Fundamentalism Stupid!

 BACK IN THE 1970s, the Orthodoxy I lived within was far less extreme than today’s. It demanded observance of halakha, Jewish law, but we young women were nonetheless encouraged to partake of education and career, even if Sabbath observance, kashrut, a proper marriage, and family concerns all came first. This orientation is known today as “modern Orthodox.” By contrast, the ultra-Orthodox have moved so far into fundamentalism — and with a tinge of violence, in Israel but not only in Israel — that the testimony of these breakaway authors takes on a must-tell urgency and powerful cultural resonance. Critic Laura Blum says of this literary wave, “They are having their Arab Spring.” The parallels are persuasive ­— these writers and artists are in the avant-garde sounding the first notes of a call for self-determination. The analogy is also sobering.

FAIGY MEYER BECAME a tabloid headline last July when she leapt to her death from a Manhattan rooftop bar. Faige (shown below) was not a fictional character, nor did she write a memoir. She was a 30-year-old woman who had left behind her ultra-Orthodox upbringing for a secular life some six years before. Friends said she carried a darkness within that she could not dispel. Since I, too, broke with the Orthodox world of my childhood, I empathized with Faigy’s self-rejection and despair. I imagine that there were days when she felt brave and determined, possibly even powerful and free, but on that summer day when she took the fatal plunge in the Flatiron district, Faigy had once again lost her faith. This time, it was not her faith in religious doctrine but in her own worthiness to live.

FAIGY MEYER a"h

 Back when I was Faigy’s age, I rarely told people from non-religious backgrounds of my Orthodox origins. Organized religion (as opposed to “spirituality”) was in such disrepute among flower children of the 1970s that it seemed futile to explain where I hailed from and why it hurt so much to leave it behind. Today, however, I am among a cohort of women authors contributing to a successful wave of tell-all, up-from-Orthodoxy memoirs. How has the social climate changed to champion our success? What is it we have to say about the larger issues of religious fundamentalism, patriarchy’s power, women as catalysts for change, and the current schism in the Jewish world around these very issues? And why are today’s readers drawn to our stories? Are these memoirs harbingers of a turning point in an increasingly global, ideological conflict between religious fundamentalism and modern society?



The books consistently trace an arc from their authors’ origins as obedient daughters, through conflicted adolescence, into a full-flowering womanhood in which they seek autonomy of worldview and lifestyle. Their stories are marked by a slow-simmering awareness of their own dissenting spirits, a terror of the unavoidable consequences, and admirable, sometimes sacrificial, courage. For every freedom gained, there is a cutting emotional loss; in some cases, the price a woman pays for her freedom is the right to maintain contact with her own children.

There are, of course, important differences in the stories. Some transitions are smoother, some rockier and more haunted; some of the writers find greater fulfillment in their new lives, others are more bereft. The personalities and preferences of each author emerge within these narrative distinctions, but the overall social significance of their reports lies in the dissident trajectory that they share.

The books owe their appeal in part to the public’s curiosity about daily doings within these hermetic Jewish communities. Uninitiated readers anticipate passing through closed doors. But since the authors, as females, are themselves excluded from central activities such as study, prayer, and leadership, they report from the excluded side of the gender partition. The early action takes place in bedrooms shared with sisters, in all-girls schools, in women’s synagogue balconies, and in their aunts’ and grandmothers’ kitchens, where the girls are indoctrinated in the lavish preparation of food for others.

READ IT ALL: 

http://jewishcurrents.org/orthodox-women-escaping-41014

One of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s leading supporters in New York’s Orthodox Jewish community surrendered in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday to begin a 15-day sentence for misdemeanor sexual abuse, after an appeals court rejected his request for a new trial, the district attorney’s office said.

 

ARI NOE, LEFT

De Blasio Supporter Convicted of Sexual Abuse Begins Jail Term

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.APRIL 7, 2016

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One of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s leading supporters in New York’s Orthodox Jewish community surrendered in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday to begin a 15-day sentence for misdemeanor sexual abuse, after an appeals court rejected his request for a new trial, the district attorney’s office said.

The supporter, Ari Noe, 42, of Borough Park, Brooklyn, was sentenced nearly three years ago after being convicted of forcibly touching a woman in an Upper West Side bar, but the execution of his sentence had been delayed repeatedly while he appealed the verdict.

Mr. Noe went to court on Thursday expecting another delay, but in a surprise move, a prosecutor handed him a decision from the appeals court denying his motion for a new trial.

Mr. Noe’s lawyer, Abe George, asked the court for more time to allow his client to get his affairs in order. But Judge Melissa A. Crane said Mr. Noe had exhausted his appeals and ordered court officers to take him into custody right away.

Mr. George said he was surprised by “the callousness of both the D.A. and the judge not to allow Mr. Noe time to settle his affairs and have a proper goodbye with his wife and six children.”

Mr. de Blasio has distanced himself from Mr. Noe, the chief executive of an outdoor advertising company and a backer of the mayor’s 2013 campaign, since Mr. Noe’s conviction came to light this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/nyregion/de-blasio-supporter-convicted-of-sexual-abuse-begins-jail-term.html?emc=edit_tnt_20160407&nlid=32999454&tntemail0=y&_r=0

Fugitive Jewish headmistress Malka Leifer will now battle ­authorities in two countries after a former student and teacher at a Melbourne girls’ school last week launched legal action against the former principal for serial sexual abuse...

Fugitive Jewish school principal Malka Leifer sued for sex abuse

• Katherine Towers
• The Australian
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Fugitive Jewish headmistress Malka Leifer will now battle ­authorities in two countries after a former student and teacher at a Melbourne girls’ school last week launched legal action against the former principal for serial sexual abuse.

The woman is the sister of ­another victim who was last year awarded $1.27 million for molestation at the hands of Ms Leifer while she was principal of the ultra-orthodox Adass Israel school at Elsternwick in Melbourne’s inner southeast.

The Melbourne woman, who cannot be named, has followed her sister in suing Ms Leifer in Victoria’s Supreme Court, alleging years of abuse by the former headmistress while a student and then teacher at the school.

Students at the female-only Adass Israel school are brought up in ultra-orthodox Jewish families and have limited access to members of the opposite sex, no television, radio, internet, magazines or newspapers, and have no sexual education. Ms Leifer fled Australia for ­Israel in 2008 in the middle of the night within hours of being made aware of allegations she had sexually abused more than eight girls at the school. Some members of the Adass Israel school board are under investigation by Victoria Police for helping Ms Leifer and her family leave to avoid a criminal investigation and possible prosecution.

Ms Leifer has been under house arrest in the ultra-orthodox enclave of Bnei Brak in ­central Israel since 2014 after ­Israeli authorities responded to an extra­dition request by ­Canberra. Australia wants her to face 74 criminal charges for sexual abuse of children while head of the school, but the mother of eight has avoided extradition, claiming psychiatric distress.

Family, friends of victims and sexual abuse advocates have ­accused her of manipulating the Israeli justice system to avoid ­facing the charges.

Last month, an Israeli judge ­rejected her plea to drop the ­extradition case after her lawyers argued she was medically unfit to travel to Australia due to ­depression and panic attacks. It was the seventh extradition court hearing for Ms ­Leifer, leading to prosecutors ­accusing her of stalling tactics. State prosecutor Avital Ribner-Oron told the Jerusalem District Court that Ms Leifer was “faking” her illness to have the proceedings dropped.

The judge refused to drop the extradition application, but ordered an intensive psychiatric assessment of Ms Leifer.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/fugitive-jewish-school-principal-malka-leifer-sued-for-sex-abuse/news-story/9d3273841f5c13aa140163fe01eeb0b6

"I heard that some teachers molested children but police or authorities were never called. Instead, the teachers would be moved on to another school and it was hoped people would just forget about it. There are no checks on the teachers for having criminal records or a history of abusing children and I fear that certain types of people might be drawn to the ‘profession’ to exploit children who they know are vulnerable and isolated from authorities, and who they know they won’t be held to account for abusing."

'My childhood was stolen from me': Pupil of illegal Jewish faith school reveals physical abuse

A former student says days were long and punishments hard in an illegal school system ignored by state authorities...

I was a pupil at illegal ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools in Hackney and was left alone and vulnerable in schools, while authorities failed to protect me. Because life inside these schools was all I knew, I didn’t even realise how wrong my experiences were until I left aged 18. Now I can see how my childhood was stolen from me – both by these illegal schools and by authorities who have no grasp on or interest in protecting children like me.

My school was a cabin. The roof was falling in with water and there were two toilets for 300 children. There was no concept of health and safety as our teachers told us, ‘God will protect you’ from anything bad happening. There was no playground, just a large concrete space. We spent break times playing with the wheels of old cars, or would kick around plastic bottles as makeshift footballs.

Other than occasional short breaks, we would spend entire days studying religious texts, normally starting at 6am and finishing at around 10pm or 11pm. Lessons were only in Yiddish and I left aged 18 unable to speak more than a few sentences of English. You sit in one seat all day, being taught pretty much the same thing every day. For young children, it’s very hard. But you have to do it, out of fear.

I was beaten physically by teachers and saw children beaten on a daily basis. We were hit with all sorts of objects. They had sticks which were colour coded for different types of bad behaviour and we would be hit with them; a red stick for one transgression, a yellow stick for another. I saw children really quite badly hurt. One got their knuckle broken. Others were marked with bruises. There is an internal first aid centre in Stamford Hill for Orthodox Jews. Children would be brought there to be tended to quietly so that it wouldn’t come out.

I heard that some teachers molested children but police or authorities were never called. Instead, the teachers would be moved on to another school and it was hoped people would just forget about it. There are no checks on the teachers for having criminal records or a history of abusing children and I fear that certain types of people might be drawn to the ‘profession’ to exploit children who they know are vulnerable and isolated from authorities, and who they know they won’t be held to account for abusing.

Teachers were used by the wider community as contact points for arranged marriages. Parents who were considering making a match with their daughter and a boy would approach a teacher and ask them to give them a reference about what a particular boy was like. Once the parents and teachers agreed on a marriage, the boy would be told and then expected to go through with the wedding when he turned 18. We just saw it as normal.

I finally left the community when I was 18 after being pressured to enter an arranged marriage. When I left, it was so difficult. I could only speak Yiddish and, despite living in London my entire life, I couldn’t really have a conversation in English. I could do little more than ask for directions and ask how much things cost in a shop.

Looking back, I feel my childhood was stolen. Ultimately the blame comes down to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community who run these schools and send their children to them but I feel a lot of the blame is on the authorities. They are the ones who are the guardians of children and they’ve stolen my childhood, stolen my rights, stolen any chance to have real choice and opportunity in life.

Every day that I was at the school, the council and the Government could have acted but didn’t. I think that sometimes they misleadingly believe that by intervening they will be seen as intimidating minority communities, but they are doing exactly the opposite. They are being discriminatory against Jewish children and anti-Semitic by not intervening. They’re saying that children like me don’t have the same rights as any other child because we come from the Orthodox Jewish community.

I’ve been lucky that I was able to get out of the community and make a new life now. But most of these children are not able to break free of these schools and will never be even aware of how much has been taken from them and how much their lives have been disadvantaged by it, that’s the saddest part.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/my-childhood-was-stolen-from-me-pupil-of-illegal-jewish-faith-school-reveals-physical-physical-abuse-a6965536.html

There is an “astonishing” amount of sexual abuse in Jewish circles, Forer said. “We have to stand up and say this is unacceptable.”

Child sexual abuse in community rampant, audience told

Jews must put aside fear of shaming their community, their families and themselves, as well as perceived prohibitions of turning to secular authorities, to fight a growing wave of child sexual abuse, speakers told an audience at Shaarei Shomayim Congregation.

Speakers addressing a packed sanctuary on March 31 made blunt, often harrowing assessments of childhood sexual abuse in Jewish communities, saying the problem is rampant and is too often ignored or denied outright.

There was a large Orthodox contingent in attendance, and speakers stressed that Orthodox and chassidic communities offer much resistance to dealing with the sexual abuse of children. It is time to end the silence, they said.

MC Benny Forer, a graduate of Ner Israel Yeshiva north of Toronto, and now a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles,  recounted how his best friend had been sexually abused and killed himself on Yom Kippur in 1993.

There is an “astonishing” amount of sexual abuse in Jewish circles, Forer said. “We have to stand up and say this is unacceptable.”

The session was organized by Jewish Community Watch (JCW), a five-year-old New York-based group that raises awareness of child sexual abuse, exposes abusers, and offers programs, referrals and services for victims and their families.

The organization gained recognition “throughout many Orthodox Jewish communities all over the world,” it states on its website. “The team has championed, through the backlash and resistance of a grandfather culture concerned more for the image of the community than the lives of the victims, to ensure that every Jewish victim of [abuse] has a place to be heard and to be validated.”

Orthodox Jews must not allow halachic terms to cover their unwillingness to face up to the issue, said Rabbi Yosef Blau, a mashgiach ruchani (spiritual adviser) at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

The term mesira, one who hands over a Jew to outside authorities and “is understood to describe a terrible individual, is misused,” Rabbi Blau said.

There are also “important exceptions” to lashon hara (hateful speech), he added.

“The Halachah indicates very clearly that [if] there is a danger to the community caused by the action of someone, and [that] the internal mechanism of the community cannot protect [it] from that individual without being permitted or obligated to utilize the secular authorities to ensure that people are protected,” Rabbi Blau said.

“We can’t allow justifications and rationalizations to get in the way.”

If a school where an abuser has taught, or a parent with knowledge of an abusive teacher does not pass along information about him, “each one of those bears responsibility for the abuse that’s going to follow,” Rabbi Blau said.

Det.-Const. Joel Manherz of the Toronto Police Service Sex Crimes Unit’s Child Exploitation Section took the audience through the mechanics of laying a police complaint.

Manherz is assigned to the case of Stephen Joseph Schacter, a former teacher at two Toronto-area Jewish day schools, who is facing several sex crime charges involving minors, based on witnesses having come forward.

“Finding the courage to come forward doesn’t mean finding the fortitude to call police,” Manherz said. “It means being resolute in your actions and words. It means being prepared for the possibility that people may know you have come forward with the intention of making your community a better and safer place to live.”

When it comes to giving evidence, “you are in control.”

He said that under Canadian law, there is no statute of limitations for prosecuting sex crimes involving children, and that teachers and clergy may be prosecuted themselves for failing to report such actions.

The evening also heard from the Orthodox father of a child who had been abused by his counsellor at a Jewish summer camp in New York state. The child came forward with the allegations three years after they happened, following bouts of depression and rebellious behaviour.

The effect on families of abused children can be devastating, the father said. “We need to be better educated,” he said. “We cannot rely on anyone else.”

In a stirring address, Meyer Seewald, who co-founded JCW with his brother Shneur in 2011, said the only way to combat child sexual abuse is first to admit it happens in the Jewish community.

Despite “much opposition” from rabbis, Seewald, himself a survivor of sexual abuse, said he can “almost guarantee” that every rabbi knows of at least one case of abuse. Sexual abuse “is our dark little secret. It’s only a matter of time before it explodes in our face.”

Meyer Seewald

Statistics show that between one in three and one in five girls, and one in five and one in six boys are victimized by sexual abuse, Seewald noted, and the most common form is incest.

JCW now has 12 full-time employees and spends up to $40,000 a month defraying the cost of therapy for victims.

“We have a huge problem,” he said. “A day does not go by that I am not personally contacted by a victim.”

But, “we will find you and you will be exposed,” he pledged to abusers, “and that goes for those covering up the abuse.”

To applause and cheers, he said the previous administration at Toronto’s Eitz Chaim Schools, where Schacter once taught, should be held accountable for his actions.

http://www.cjnews.com/living-jewish/health/child-sexual-abuse-in-community-rampant-audience-told