By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer
Newsday - May 26, 2003
This is the first in a three-part series.
It was the sound of ripping cloth, they said, that woke them up.
On
an August night in the Catskills, with summer camp almost over, the
boys had fallen asleep in their bunkhouse, exhausted from play and
religious study. Only minutes later, they would later testify in court,
the noise awakened them. Then came mysterious movements in the dark
cabin. The campers lay still. Why was a human figure hovering over the
bed of a 10-year-old Woodmere boy?
The
terrified boy blurted out his allegation to a camp counselor almost a
day later: Someone, he said, had torn open the seat of his pajamas and
sexually abused him.
The boy's parents were called to camp more than a day later, but police were not notified.
"We
all concurred that considering the trauma that would possibly result
from further action, it would be best not to take any additional
action," according to the camp's notes, later filed in court in a civil
suit. A state Department of Health sanitarian later found that the camp
violated state regulations by not reporting the accusation.
Police
learned of the allegations two months later, alerted by a psychologist
who was treating the boy. The boy's mother later told a state official
she felt pressured to remain silent, according to state health
department records. After all, the alleged abuser and the camp officials
were revered religious leaders.
The
accused was eventually acquitted by a judge, who said "contradictory
and sometimes retracting statements" left him unclear about what
happened. The camp suggests that the alleged incident was fabricated.
After
more than a year of charges and disclosures concerning sexual abuse of
young people by Catholic priests, the story may sound familiar. But the
camp, Mogen Avraham,
is a popular summer retreat in Bethel for Orthodox Jewish children. And
the accused was not a priest, but a teaching rabbi from Forest Hills.
The alleged 1998 incident at Camp Mogen Avraham
is just one in a growing dossier of allegations that rabbis, cantors
and other Jewish religious leaders have abused children and teenagers in
their care, a Newsday investigation has found.
In
sheer numbers, the problem is unlikely to rival the Catholic Church's,
since priests outnumber rabbis by roughly nine to one. While there is no
data on the number of clergy with sexual disorders, experts say that,
anecdotally, the problem does not seem as severe in the rabbinate as in
the priesthood, even in relative terms.
Even
so, some rabbis call the sexual abuse allegations a "crisis," and
religious organizations are grappling with ways to handle it.
Polin,
who is Jewish and calls herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,
runs The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based clearinghouse that tracks
sexual abuse allegations against Jewish religious leaders. The center's
Web site lists about 40 alleged cases of abuse involving rabbis and
cantors. As with the Catholic scandals, Jewish victims say they still
struggle years, even decades, later with this betrayal of trust.
"I
can honestly say that he ruined not only my Bas-Mitzvah, but my faith
in Judaism," wrote one woman, now 30, referring to Rabbi Sidney
Goldenberg. In a letter to California prosecutors, the woman said
Goldenberg, then a cantor, made lewd comments and rubbed her thigh in
her parents' home in Seaford in 1985. At the time, he was supposed to be
helping her prepare for her bat mitzvah, the joyous and solemn
religious celebration when a Jewish girl turns 13.
Goldenberg
was convicted in 1997 of abusing a 12-year-old California bat mitzvah
student, after investigators uncovered a 27-year trail of complaints by
girls against him. He served three years and is now living on Coney
Island, according to police.
Like
the Goldenberg case, the abuse allegations tend to have common
elements, including some familiar from the Catholic scandals:
Children
and in some cases parents are reluctant to accuse respected clergymen.
When they do, they are often disbelieved, dismissed, even derided.
"You
have to understand the extent to which the guys in the school looked up
to [the rabbi]," says one man, now 38, who says he was abused as a
teenager by a rabbi now teaching in Israel. "He was beyond question."
And another rabbi recalls dismissing several girls' complaints against Goldenberg as "some giggly thing."
Religious
authorities fail to report abuse charges to the police. Among strictly
observant Orthodox Jews, this tendency is bolstered by the ancient
doctrine of mesira, which prohibits Jews from informing on other Jews to
secular authorities, a legacy of centuries of oppression of Jews in
many countries.
When
religious leaders try to investigate cases and prevent abusers from
having contact with children, their efforts often fail. "Few rabbis have
any training in recognizing abuse, and the rabbinical courts have no
investigative arm," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, the spiritual counselor to
students at Yeshiva University.
Alleged
abusers continue to operate freely by moving among congregations,
states, even countries. Avrohom Mondrowitz, a self-styled rabbi who once
had a popular radio show in Brooklyn, is living openly and teaching in a
Jerusalem college although he is wanted on charges of sexually abusing
four Brooklyn boys, aged 10 to 16. If he ever returns to the United
States, he will be arrested, according to the office of Brooklyn
District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.
Many
of the alleged abusers were popular, even charismatic leaders, who were
thought to be particularly good in relating to young people. Rabbi
Baruch Lanner, convicted last year of endangering the welfare of two
girls at a New Jersey yeshiva, sidestepped abuse allegations for years,
in part because of his reputation as a dynamic figure in an Orthodox
youth program.
Unlike
the Catholic Church, Jewish authority is not centralized, but various
groups within the branches of Judaism have begun to strengthen
anti-abuse policies for their members.
At
its annual meeting, which starts today in Rye, the Rabbinical Council
of America, an organization of 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, features programs
on curbing abuse, including one entitled "Rabbinic Behavior: Confronting
a Crisis of Accountability."
"We're
trying to establish that inappropriate behavior is inexcusable," said
Rabbi Hershel Billet, president of the organization and rabbi at Young
Israel of Woodmere.
Rabbi
Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a psychotherapist who is also the Orthodox Union's
executive vice president, said he hopes the rabbinical council will make
a firm commitment during the meeting "to develop a real, real tight
program" combating sexual abuse.
The
rabbinical council is expected to discuss ways to adjudicate abuse
allegations against its members, with penalties that include ouster.
Sources
within the organization say that the impetus for the panel's work
includes old abuse allegations against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Kew
Gardens Hills, which he has repeatedly denied, and the recent arrest of
Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum of Highland Park, N.J.
Kestenbaum,
a chaplaincy leader for the New York Board of Rabbis, was charged in
February with endangering the welfare of a minor after allegedly
discussing sex with an undercover police officer posing as a teenage
girl in a chat room called "I Love Older Men." Kestenbaum has pleaded
not guilty.
Rabbis
concerned about sex abuse say accusations against a rabbi are often
handled quietly, or not at all. Accused rabbis go on hiatus briefly,
then revive their ministries in other congregations, even other
countries in the far-flung Diaspora.
One
of those was Rabbi Matis Weinberg. Accused of sexually abusing students
at his California yeshiva two decades ago, he is said to have agreed to
leave teaching. But Weinberg resurrected his teaching career in Israel.
When Yeshiva University in Manhattan recently unearthed the allegations
against Weinberg, the New York school severed its ties to the Jerusalem
college where Weinberg had lectured until recently.
Weinberg
has never been charged with a crime and has denied the former students'
allegations. Through a friend, he declined to discuss the charges with
Newsday.
The
allegations against Weinberg have been widely reported in the Jewish
press and have helped bring the issue to the fore in recent months.
Like
the Orthodox rabbis' council, representatives of other branches of
Judaism say they are taking steps to combat sexual abuse.
"I
would rather this not become an epidemic and I think what we need to do
is take affirmative steps to guide people before they make mistakes,"
said Rabbi Jerome Epstein of the United Synagogue of Conservative
Judaism, the lay arm of the Conservative movement. Epstein said the
group's committee on congregational standards is currently working on a
"best practices" document.
Rabbi
Steven Rosenberg of McAllen, Texas, formerly the leader of the Jewish
Center of Bay Shore, said his Conservative congregation already has
adopted such rules.
"If
I have a bat mitzvah in my office, the door is never closed," said
Rosenberg, who also tells his 23 religion school teachers "they are not
allowed to touch students, not a pat, not a hug."
"It is very important for me for my congregants to know: That kind of behavior -- we will not tolerate it," said Rosenberg.
Rosenberg
was sensitized by the case against Sidney Goldenberg, the former
cantor, who had worked at the Bay Shore synagogue before moving to
California.
Many
rabbis say their groups would always notify police about abuse although
their rules usually do not spell this out. Such notification was one of
the remedies embraced by Roman Catholic bishops in the priest abuse
scandal. And Reform rabbis are in the process of revising their ethics
code to include such a requirement, according to Rabbi Paul Menitoff,
executive vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The
National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an Orthodox group, does have a
policy requiring that police be notified, an outgrowth of its scandal
involving Lanner, a longtime youth leader with the group.
In
that case, a religious court called a bet din concluded in 1989 that
the most serious charges against Lanner were unfounded, clearing the way
for his continued youth work. Last year, more than a dozen years later,
he was convicted in New Jersey on abuse-related charges.
Orthodox
Jews frequently rely on the batei din, but Blau, a member of the Lanner
bet din, has become an outspoken critic of the religious court system.
For
one thing, he said, judges in the religious courts often know the
accused, making fair decisions difficult. In addition, he said that
perjury before a bet din is rarely punished.
Appearing
in February before dozens of students in the main study hall at Yeshiva
University, Blau and the two other members of the Lanner bet din issued
an extraordinary public apology for their role in allowing Lanner to
continue unchecked for so many years.
"We
must do everything in our power to protect potential victims from
abuse," the apology said. "This includes reporting accusations of abuse
to Jewish and, at times, to secular authorities."
Such
a secular-reporting requirement is controversial among some Orthodox
groups, partly because it appears to run counter to the doctrine called
mesira.
In
ancient times, one who violated the doctrine and reported a fellow Jew
to secular authorities could be killed on sight. Today, the punishment
is generally ostracism in the community.
The
vast majority of rabbis agree that mesira is overridden when there is
imminent danger to possible future victims, but Blau says the taboo
remains, particularly among the most traditional Orthodox.
Civil authorities who seek to act against rabbinic abuse often become frustrated by the reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Prosecutors
in Sullivan County complained during the case that their witnesses
faced pressure when they tried to prosecute Yaakov Weiner, the teaching
rabbi acquitted in the Mogen Avraham case.
"It
was a bitter pill for me," remembers Tom Cawley, the former Sullivan
County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Mogen Avraham
case. "They sent their kid to camp up here in Bethel and thought he'd be
taken care of. Someone was taken care of, all right, but it wasn't
him."
Weiner,
who has taught in several yeshivas throughout the metropolitan area,
consistently denied the charges. Attempts to reach him through one of
his lawyers were unsuccessful.
The
boy's mother and father, a rabbi himself, would not discuss the case
with Newsday. But camp and State Health Department records filed in
court indicate that the parents were not told of the alleged abuse until
nearly 48 hours after the boy spoke of it, while the 36-year-old
Weiner's father, a rabbi well-known in the Queens Orthodox community,
was notified sooner.
Contacted
recently, the camp's current executive director, Moshe Wein, defended
the camp's handling of the accusation, saying, "There's no evidence to
indicate that an incident took place." He added, "This may be one of
those cases in which a child lied."
Lawyers
for Weiner at his bench trial made much of contradictions in the boy's
statements. But the most confusing testimony came from the alleged
victim's bunkmates.
One of the boys reversed his story between the time he spoke to police and the trial several months later, Cawley said in court.
"We
believe that there was pressure placed on the victim and children's
families to get them not to testify," said Sullivan County District
Attorney Stephen Lungen in a recent telephone interview. "There was a
child who could have substantiated what was said, and that family would
not cooperate."
 |
| Judge Frank Labuda |
"It
is clear in the evening hours of August 8 and the morning of August 9,
two years ago, something happened at bunk 3 Gimel bunk... " he said in
his January 2000 ruling. But Labuda concluded that trial testimony "does
not create a clear picture for this court of exactly what happened in
Gimel bunk nor who did it."
He found Weiner not guilty.
