“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

Continue reading the main story Share This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More
• Save

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
• Save
• Print

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

The radicalization of the haredi world --- The haredi issue could morph into violent societal confrontation and cause immense damage, just at a time as Israelis are seeking out their Jewish roots and becoming increasingly more traditional....

The polarization within the Jewish religious arena is sharply reflected both by the dramatic weakening of modern Orthodox streams and in the growing radicalization of the haredi world and empowerment of its most extreme elements.

I recollect nostalgically the Orthodox rabbis with whom I was acquainted in the Diaspora. With the exception of the Hungarian ultra-Orthodox who deliberately isolated themselves from the broader community and the fanatically anti-Zionist Satmar Hassidim, they were all committed to the communal welfare.

Ultra-Orthodox laymen included doctors, lawyers and businesspeople who ensured that besides a yeshiva education, their children also learned trades or studied in university. In a word, most of them participated in the broader community.

In Israel during the early decades of the state, aside from small pockets of extremists, the Aguda and other ultra-Orthodox groups retained a respectful attitude to the state and its instrumentalities.

However, with the growth of haredi representation in the Knesset enabling them to tilt the balance of power, they succeeded in leveraging vast sums from successive governments for their education and housing.

Simultaneously, yeshiva rabbis, devoid of secular education and many with minimal interaction with society, strove to enroll as many yeshiva students as possible, irrespective of their abilities. Furthermore, they urged their followers to devote their lives toward full-time learning without earning a livelihood, and to rely on state welfare.

This approach has no precedent in Jewish life.

 Many of the rabbis debating in the Mishnah are actually identified by their profession, and Maimonides emphatically stated that “Whoever thinks he can study Torah and not work, and relies on charity, profanes God’s name.”

The radicalization was spearheaded by an aggressive haredi hijacking of the Chief Rabbinate – a state institution which they had formerly treated with contempt.

In turn, this led to a determined drive to impose on the entire nation excessively stringent interpretations of Jewish law in all spheres – marriage, divorce, gender separation, conversion and kashrut.

In order to alleviate acute economic hardship, the great sages of the past creatively interpreted halacha on issues like prohibition against interest and the observance of Shmita (the injunction to allow the land in Israel to lie fallow every seventh year). In contrast, today’s haredi rabbis enforce the most stringent interpretations without concern for the welfare of the nation as a whole.

The combination of extremism, isolationism and political power climaxed with the histrionic efforts by haredim to resist the government decision to partially remove the exemption of military or national service to yeshiva students.

With overwhelming public support, the government voted to revoke the exemptions which, due to the massive demographic expansion of the haredi sector, had mushroomed from the original 400 granted by prime minister David Ben-Gurion to over 8,500 annually.

Desperate to retain control of their followers and maintain the cordon sanitaire they had created between their world and society at large, haredi rabbis launched massive protests.

No halachic prohibition exists against serving in the army of Israel. Our bible is full of military campaigns and of personalities like Joshua and King David who personally led, fought and saved the Jewish people in battle. The sages tell us we are obliged to fight to defend ourselves (Milchemet Mitzvah).

Israelis, especially religious Zionists who take great pride in their army service, are outraged by the haredi claim that they are contributing to the defense of Israel by learning Torah and praying. The former, discredited, Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yonah Metzger even made the bizarre statement that “when yeshiva attendance is low, as on holiday evenings or prior to the Shabbat, more IDF soldiers are killed.”

The government made every effort to achieve this change on a consensual level. The law shall only be implemented gradually over three years and will only apply at the age of 24. The principal vehicle to achieve this was financial, by reducing and even eliminating the state subsidies to yeshivot refusing to cooperate.

Unfortunately, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, in a populist stunt, succeeded in tabling a government proposal whereby criminal sanctions would be applied to those refusing to register. This was utterly impractical as under such circumstances, the prison system would collapse or be transformed into de-facto yeshivot.

However, the extremists cynically grabbed this opportunity to radicalize, unite and goad the entire haredi community into one of its ugliest confrontations with the state.

The language directed against the government was disgusting and profane, with some of the so called “gedolei hador,” or religious leaders of the generation, accusing the government of “imprisoning Jews for learning Torah” and comparing political leaders to Amalek and Nazis.

Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, widely regarded as the moderate “gadol hador” of the Lithuanian haredim, told government ministers that they should “go to hell and suffer and be totally annihilated... May their names and memories be blotted out.”

Contrast this vulgar language to the respectful disagreements recorded in the Mishnah to gauge the depths to which our “gedolim” have descended.

Equally disturbing was the unification of the entire haredi world in this vicious and contemptible crusade.( IN ISRAEL AND IN THE UNITED STATES)

Clearly the moderates had been silenced and the radicals, many of whom are aggressively anti-Zionist and even refuse to recite prayers for the state or the IDF, are now in control. The chief rabbis, who are state employees, behaved as puppets by participating in the haredi demonstration – claiming that they were indulging in “prayers.” These same chief rabbis had earlier issued an injunction that women should not serve in the IDF, which outraged religious Zionists.

The campaign was extended to the Diaspora. In New York a major demonstration against the Israeli government took place in which Agudath Israel of America, usually loath to engage in anti-Israeli activities, fully participated. The Rabbinical Council of America, once a proud bastion of modern orthodoxy, responded with deafening silence and they themselves and the Agudath Israel organized and actively participated in this hateful event!

 http://www.sott.net/article/275727-Thousands-of-Orthodox-Jews-swarmed-NYC-streets-to-protest-Israeli-military-draft


In Melbourne, Australia, where a similar rally took place, an outraged response erupted from the rank-and- file Jewish community, and the dominant Chabad rabbinate was obliged to write a humiliating letter claiming that it had misunderstood the nature of the rally and apologized. This demonstrates that laymen can stand up against extremist rabbis, and when they do, they usually succeed.

The roots of the problem are that the influential radical rabbis are becoming ever more extreme and shrill in their isolation from society and attacks on the leadership.

There is a bitter truth in the remark that were Maimonides alive today he would be denied a teaching post in a haredi yeshiva because of his worldly knowledge and scientific outlook.

It is sad that a Diaspora haredi doctor, lawyer or businessman settling in Israel, by sending his children to a haredi yeshiva denies them the same education and profession from which he benefited. They are destined to join the horde of uneducated black-hats pursuing Talmudic studies, denied worldly knowledge and isolated from those who do not share their outlook.

The haredi rabbis are making a terrible mistake. Instead of cooperating with the government which is willing to be flexible and gradual in imposing changes, they are polarizing the situation and leading their followers into an abyss of ignorance and poverty. Their behavior is reminiscent of those rabbis in Europe who urged their followers not to leave on the eve of the Holocaust.

The power of the radical rabbis will only be reversed if we exercise people power.

 We must insist that a moderate Zionist rabbinical leadership take control of fundamental issues affecting all Jewish citizens. If the haredi-controlled chief rabbinate remains an obstacle, the modern Orthodox and national religious camp should set up its own independent rabbinate...

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/The-radicalization-of-the-haredi-world-346487

"In the early 2000s, through my job as a social worker, I came across a pattern, a persistent issue that accompanied clients who had initially arrived with other, seemingly unrelated, stories. The unexpected problem, the crucial pattern that underpinned so many of my clients’ stories, was child sexual abuse..."

 Missing voices: Women and the Jewish community’s response to child sexual abuse

By Vivien Resofsky, Social Worker

This essay is an account of my decade-long battle with the issue of child sexual abuse in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community and the significant lack of female representation in this field.

Specifically, I am concerned with the missing voices of both female victims and advocates, two groups of women who should be at the forefront of the fight against child sexual abuse, yet were nowhere to be found during the time of the Royal Commission Hearing in 2015.

I aim to explore possible reasons for this absence, as well as the fraught way in which those females who do participate respond to their community’s needs.....

Download article

Finding Courage to Talk About Child Sexual Abuse - "If silence is a predator's best friend, and if shame and denial are the ingredients that help this epidemic to grow, then how can any of us stay silent? Maybe instead of just focusing on how uncomfortable this conversation is, we could focus on how this is an opportunity to have courage."

The Recent Agudath Israel Convention In Photos

Compliments in part to the CBC




















The divining of the "older pedophiles" at the evening prayers by the Moetzes Guardian Council - Subprime Leaders -************ Assembly of Experts!

******************

The Marge Markey Baby Rockettes - showing off their stuff in support of the Markey Bill! (volume up)

"We can create a world where there's a real deterrent to violating the rights of another human being"... Jewish kids included!

We don't have to live in a world where 99 percent of rapists get away with it, says TED Fellow Jessica Ladd. With Callisto, a new platform for college students to confidentially report sexual assault, Ladd is helping survivors get the support and justice they deserve while respecting their privacy concerns. "We can create a world where there's a real deterrent to violating the rights of another human being," she says.

Israel has become a safe haven for Jewish pedophiles from around the world, a leading advocate for child sexual abuse victims warned Monday at a Knesset committee pre-hearing on pedophilia in the ultra-Orthodox community....

Israel Becoming a 'Refuge for Pedophiles,' Warns Advocate for Child Sex Abuse Victims

The Most Notorious of American Pedophiles, Avrohom Mondrowitz, Living Free In Israel

Israel has become a safe haven for Jewish pedophiles from around the world, a leading advocate for child sexual abuse victims warned Monday at a Knesset committee pre-hearing on pedophilia in the ultra-Orthodox community.

“Sex offenders tend to move from country to country to avoid jail, but what makes Israel unique is the Law of Return, which essentially grants unhindered access to anyone who is Jewish to come here without any real screening,” said  the chief executive officer of Kol v’Oz, a newly formed nonprofit that aims to prevent child sexual abuse in the global Jewish community.

The Law of Return grants automatic citizenship in Israel to those who meet its definition of a Jew.

He was raised in Melbourne, Australia where he attended Yeshiva Centre, a school run by the Chabad movement.  Years later, he reported that he had been sexually abused by two members of the staff there. Waks and his family, who have since been featured in several Australian documentaries, were ostracized by the local Chabad community for coming out publicly with their story. 

Along with representatives of several other groups active in preventing child abuse in the Jewish community, he met today with MK Yifat Shasha-Biton, chair of the Knesset Special Committee for the Rights of the Child.

The full committee is expected to convene for a special session on the topic after the Passover break.

Among those accused of sexual abuse who have fled to Israel, he cited the prominent case of Malka Leifer, the former principal of a religious girls’ school in Melbourne, who allegedly assaulted eight of her charges. She is now under house arrest, and the Australian authorities are seeking her extradition.

He noted several other cases of pedophiles and alleged pedophiles from the United States, Britain and the Netherland who had fled to Israel either after being charged or to avoid being charged. Some have already been extradited back to their home countries where they are serving jail sentences.

“It seems to us Israel is increasingly becoming a refuge for pedophiles and alleged pedophiles,” said Waks. “It’s an easy get-out-of-jail card for them.” Waks, who is married with three children, recently moved back to Israel, where he was born and served in the army.

According to research data he cited, one in five children in Israel experiences sexual abuse.

“There’s a range of factors that suggest there may be a significantly higher proportion within the ultra-Orthodox community” . “I think any closed community would have increased cases, because these cases are silenced. They’re swept under the carpet. Not only that, but in the Haredi community, they don’t even talk about sex, so how can they talk about sexual abuse?”

His new organization, he said, will be lobbying the Knesset to change the statute of limitations so that victims of sexual crimes can have more time to file complaints.

Yitzhak Kadman, the executive director of the National Council for the Child, said he had noticed signs of “the beginnings of a revolution” in attitudes toward child sex offenders in the Haredi world. “I was actually astonished by the amount of openness I’ve seen recently,” he said at the meeting.

Israel may be a preferred destination for Jewish sex offenders, said Kadman, but it has also become a place of refuge for their victims. “We are seeing many of them leave their home countries and come to Israel, perhaps because they are looking for a way to get a fresh start,” he said.

Israel has become a safe haven for Jewish pedophiles from around the world, a leading advocate for child sexual abuse victims warned Monday at a Knesset committee pre-hearing on pedophilia in the ultra-Orthodox community.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.710150

Our tradition treats the crimes of Amalek with utmost severity and there are therefore three separate commandments relating to Amalek; their actions must never be forgotten, their actions must be remembered and their memory must be wiped out. The offences that Elon was convicted of embody this same immorality. The victims, students of Elon’s, had come to him in times of personal crisis, weak and defenseless. They looked to him for help and guidance and he took advantage of them. How can a man who commits such crimes so antithetical to Jewish morality return to be a spiritual leader in any Jewish community?

Mordechai Elon, we will not be silent

 

by Benzion Sanders

This past Shabbat, Shabbat Zachor, I had one of the most meaningful and memorable Seudat Shlishit that I have had in a long time.  After Mincha I went with a group of close friends and stood outside the Heichal Rachamim Shul in Givat Shmuel where dozens of other Gabash residents had already gathered. Men, women and children of all ages had all come to spend their Seudat Shlishit here in protest of the appearance at a communal event of Mordechai Elon, a formerly prominent rabbi in the religious Zionist community. Elon, who was once considered a rising rabbinic star in the community, was convicted of two counts of sexual assault against a minor in 2013. Takana Forum, which is a council of religious Zionist communal and rabbinic leaders, has described Elon as a threat to the public and has demanded that he refrain from taking rabbinical, teaching and communal positions.

Nevertheless, Elon continues to be honored at communal events and continues to teach.

Three and a half years before his conviction, Takana Forum had stated publicly that they had received incontrovertible evidence that Elon had sexually exploited a number of his students. The Takana Forum received evidence of Elon’s misconduct years earlier and confronted him about it.  Elon agreed to take upon himself a number of restrictions in order to avoid further misconduct.  The Forum only publicly released the evidence after receiving reports that Elon had committed even more severe offences and had violated the restrictions he had agreed to follow. The chairman of Takana Forum has since stated that the charges that were ultimately brought against Elon in court are small fry compared to the far more serious abuses that they had been presented evidence of.  Although Elon is said to have confessed in front of the Takana Forum he has never publicly admitted or expressed any remorse for his actions. 

A few days before Shabbat Zachor notices began to appear around Givat Shmuel inviting the public to participate in a series of events over the course of the Shabbat featuring Mordechai Elon as the honored guest and speaker. Quickly word spread throughout the community and a number of people began organizing a protest to take place outside the shul’s event hall where a seudat shlishit with Elon speaking was to be held. As a member of the Bar Ilan University chapter of Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah student organization I created a Facebook event and invited fellow students to participate in the protest. In the end the turnout was estimated to be over a hundred people. Drinks and food were passed around and the crowd joined together beautifully singing Shabbat songs while holding signs saying “Mordechai Elon, we will not be silent”.

I felt that it was particularly meaningful to stand up against this particular form of injustice on Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat that religious Jews fulfill the various commandments relating to the crimes committed against us by Amelek. I was always taught that the crimes of Amalek represent a particularly heinous form of immorality. Amalek attacked, without provocation, the defenseless Israelites from behind, where the weak and exhausted people were. The immorality exhibited by Amalek in their attack on the weak and defenseless represents the antithesis of Jewish morality which is so concerned with protecting the weak and defenseless.

 Our tradition treats the crimes of Amalek with utmost severity and there are therefore three separate commandments relating to Amalek; their actions must never be forgotten, their actions must be remembered and their memory must be wiped out. The offences that Elon was convicted of embody this same immorality. The victims, students of Elon’s, had come to him in times of personal crisis, weak and defenseless. They looked to him for help and guidance and he took advantage of them. How can a man who commits such crimes so antithetical to Jewish morality return to be a spiritual leader in any Jewish community?

I do not believe that Mordechai Elon should be treated as if we was a member of Amalek. However, a community can not justifiably allow a man, who has committed such gravely immoral abuses of power, to return to a position of spiritual leadership. By allowing someone, who so flagrantly violates the Torah’s moral demands, teach that very same Torah, the Torah is effectively emptied of all its moral content. I am proud that my community stood up to him and I hope that if he continues to make public appearances in other communities they too will rise in protest. We must not be silent.

Benzion Sanders is an American-Israeli student of Philosophy and the Middle East and a former IDF special forces soldier.  

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mordechai-elon-we-will-not-be-silent/