The
quick response by the Yeshiva Boys School to allegations of sexual
abuse by one of its teachers has been described as “exemplary.”
After a lengthy investigation, a former teacher at Yeshiva Boys
School of Pittsburgh, an important institution in the Chabad-Lubavitch
educational system, is a suspect in several alleged incidents of child
sexual abuse.
According to police, Rabbi Nisson Friedman, 26, who
is well connected in the local Jewish community and is the son of an
influential Minnesota-based rabbi, is suspected of sexually assaulting
at least three boys while employed by the school. Det. Bryan Sellers of
the city’s Bureau of Police Sex Assault Team, who is investigating the
case, said he is “absolutely certain” there are additional victims.
The
suspected assaults occurred both privately and publicly, including at
least once in the Yeshiva building on Wightman Street. According to
Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, dean of Yeshiva Schools, that incident was
discovered last year on Saturday, Sept. 24 during Shabbat services in
the building. Rosenfeld said that a member of the community observed
Friedman “touching a child inappropriately” in the facility’s library
and alerted the school’s administration.
The administration
promptly reported the disclosure of the suspected assault to the police
and to the state’s mandated ChildLine and Abuse Registry as well as to
other authorities, said Rosenfeld, and immediately suspended Friedman
from his teaching duties. Friedman has left his position with Yeshiva
Schools permanently.
Attempts to contact Friedman were
unsuccessful. A member of his family who did not want to be identified
noted that Friedman himself is a victim of child sexual abuse.
The
school’s swift response to the suspected assault was praised as
“exemplary” by Sellers, as well as by others who are experienced in
matters of child sexual abuse.
“Yeshiva followed the correct
procedures right out of the gate,” said Sellers. “They got Rabbi
Friedman out immediately, they have been accommodating law enforcement,
and they have been providing spots at the school to conduct interviews
[relative to the case].”
Additional claims of assault against
Friedman are coming from parents in Pittsburgh as well as from other
communities, said Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum, principal of Yeshiva Boys
School.
“For a long period of time, there was one allegation we were aware of, but now there are multiple stories,” Rosenblum said.
Friedman
began working at Yeshiva as a full-time teacher in September 2014; he
worked as a teacher’s aide for one year prior to that and also was on
staff for five years at Yeshiva’s Camp Gan Israel summer day camp in the
boys’ primary division. Campers at Gan Israel include families beyond
those affiliated with Pittsburgh’s Chabad community.
Friedman
also worked at other camps in the Pittsburgh Jewish community during
that time, Sellers said, although he did not identify the other camps.
Yeshiva
informed many of its parents about the accusations against Friedman
shortly after the suspected abuse was discovered last fall, and, after
the police determined that doing so would not impede their
investigation, had a meeting with the wider school community on Tuesday,
Jan. 31 “to keep all apprised of the status of the investigation and to
make available the mental health and law enforcement professionals we
are consulting with to answer any questions that can be answered at this
time,” according to a prepared statement from Yeshiva.
An arrest
warrant has not yet been issued, but it is “inevitable” that one will
be forthcoming, said Sellers. Friedman is no longer in Pittsburgh and
may be living in New York, according to multiple sources.
Deborah
Fox, founder of Magen Yeladim, a national organization based in
California that works to prevent child abuse through education and
intervenes with resources when abuse does occur, commended the Yeshiva
administration for its handling of the case. Fox came to Pittsburgh two
years ago to help train Yeshiva staff on child abuse prevention and to
speak to children about staying safe and was also present at the Jan. 31
meeting.
“When this current situation came up, [Yeshiva] called
me immediately,” Fox said. “I recommended they call Child Protective
Services, and I advised the school to get an attorney. And they did.
They really followed through in every way. They were exemplary and a
model for how a school should handle a very dramatic situation. Nobody
wants this to happen, but if it does, you have to know how to deal with
it.”
The administration of the school “knew we had to report it,”
Rosenblum said. “We have training every year on mandated reporting from
a secular group that tells us our legal responsibilities.”
Fox
noted the particular “sensitivity” in this case, praising the school for
acting in accordance with proper protocol despite outside pressures.
Friedman is connected to several Jewish institutions throughout
Pittsburgh. Moreover, Friedman hails from a renowned Lubavitch family
and is the son of an influential Minneapolis-based rabbi.
Despite
Nisson Friedman’s connections, Yeshiva Schools employed the same
vetting procedure before hiring him as it does for all its other
potential employees, according to Rosenblum. That vetting includes
procuring FBI clearances, checks with the Department of Homeland
Security and personal interviews.
“It just shows you, with
everything, you never know,” Rosenfeld said. “Unfortunately, this is a
sickness like so many others. It is unfortunately sad, but it is what it
is, and we have to protect our children. The safety of our children is
paramount.”
The school has done a “phenomenal job in acting
within what the law requires us to do,” said Shlomo Jacob, a parent of
children enrolled in Yeshiva and president of Yeshiva Schools of
Pittsburgh, the umbrella organization of the boys school. “They acted
safely in making sure it all happened, including dismissing the
teacher.”
Such is not always the case. Sellers has been assigned
to four separate cases in the Pittsburgh Jewish community — including in
the non-Orthodox community — in the last six years involving suspected
child molestation. In each of the other cases, he said, the institutions
involved declined to cooperate with police, and he was unable to make a
case against the suspected abuser.
“I’m pleasantly surprised by
the support I am getting from Yeshiva,” Sellers said. “They have set
the standard of how to handle children who are victims of sexual
assault. I’ve been very impressed.”
The actions of Yeshiva in
immediately reporting abuse may be further contrasted to those of other
schools in both secular and religious communities that chose instead to
cover it up. The examples are many and include the Jerry Sandusky
scandal at Penn State and Yeshiva University High School in New York
City, where 34 former students claimed in a $680 million lawsuit that
administrators had covered up abuse for decades.
Sellers is
hoping that additional victims step forward to disclose any
inappropriate behavior on the part of Friedman, which will strengthen
his case.
“It’s a lot easier when you have a group of victims
gathered together speaking as one rather than one standing alone,” he
said, noting that there is no time limit to coming forward. The statute
of limitations for prosecuting such abuse does not expire until the
victim reaches the age of 50.
If parents notice changes in a
child’s behavior or an unusual reaction when the child hears Friedman
mentioned, they are advised to contact Sellers. The detective cautioned
against parents speaking to their children about any suspected abuse but
advised them to instead arrange for a forensic interview. If a child
comes forward on his own, parents are advised to hear what the child
says, then report it to the police.
Fox, of Magen Yeladim, said
that parents should refrain from interviewing their children themselves
about possible abuse. She suspects there are additional victims in
Pittsburgh.
After the Jan. 31 meeting, “there was a line of
people waiting to speak to the detective, and a line of people waiting
to speak to me,” she said.
Fox’s advice to the community when it comes to child abuse is: “If you see something, say something.”
“The more that the community is aware, the more the community can make it unsafe for a predator,” she said.
Former
Pittsburgher Ruth Gordon knows firsthand the pain of being a parent of a
child who is sexually abused in the Orthodox community. Her son, David
Menachem Gordon, was a student at Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh from 2008
to 2010, and his parents were members of the Orthodox Gemilas Chesed
Synagogue.
But it was in the Orthodox community of Detroit where
Gordon was sexually abused when he was between the ages of 9 and 11.
Years later, Gordon was a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces
during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge when he went missing one day in
mid-August. Two days later, he was found dead with his rifle beside him.
As a child, his parents knew something was wrong, but they didn’t find out about the abuse until he revealed it when he was 16.
Looking
back, Gordon recalled that at the age of 9, her son’s “behavior changed
drastically overnight. He became the opposite of what we were used to.”
The
Gordons sought medical advice and psychological help for their son, but
they did not suspect sexual abuse. They didn’t want to.
“Someone
had said to me at the time, ‘What you are describing to me is
indicative of a child who has been molested,’” Gordon recalled. “I shut
them down.”
Once they accepted the fact that he had been abused,
and the Gordons came forth with their son’s claims, they were “shunned”
in the Orthodox community in Detroit, she said.
“People didn’t
want to have anything to do with us because they didn’t think we should
be talking about it. We reached out for help, and we were rejected, and
that hurt.”
Gordon now lives in Columbus, Ohio, but nonetheless
heard about the suspicions against Friedman and of Yeshiva’s response to
those accusations, last fall. Gordon was pleased with the school’s
reaction, particularly in light of Friedman’s connections.
“When someone is well connected … that is where things sometimes get hazy,” she said.
“But
if I could, I would go and hug those administrators [at Yeshiva]. They
did everything right. They did what had to be done. They said, ‘First,
let’s get rid of him and then we’ll sort it out.’ That’s not easy to
do.”
Anyone wishing to arrange for a forensic examination of a
child who had contact with Friedman should contact Sellers at
412-323-7141.
Toby Tabachnick can be reached at
tobyt@thejewishchronicle.net.
