It was the 1960s, Shlomo Carlebach was like a rock star. Most rabbonim were very aware of the complaints, yet weren’t trained in dealing with such issues. You have to understand how things were handled back then. Shlomo liked his women — you ask why so many women have been coming forward over the years claiming abuse? . . . “Let’s just say Carlebach had at least one woman a week, but knowing Shlomo it was more likely he had a few women a day — times that by 40 years of doing kiruv (Jewish outreach).” — Rabbi Yosef Blau, Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University (2004)
Back in 2004, Rabbi Yosef Blau was a member of the Board of Directors of The Awareness Center, and was explaining to me who Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was. The above quote has been on The Awareness Center’s web page for nearly 20 years.
If Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach assaulted one woman a day for 40 years, he would have assaulted 14,660 women in his lifetime, yet according to Rabbi Yosef Blau — Shlomo Carlebach “allegedly” assaulted more then one female a day. If Rabbi Blau along with the multitude of rabbis I spoke to over the years are correct, Shlomo Carlebach is one of the most prolific sexual predators in the history of humankind.
Recently I was told that once again there’s a movement which is being spearheaded by Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl who serves as the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City, to make it socially acceptable for Neshama Carlebach and others to sing Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s songs publicly.
In honor and in memory of the teenage girls and adult women who over the decades disclosed they were sexually assaulted by Carlebach, this movement needs to be stopped.
Shlomo Carlebach passed away October 21, 1994, since that time there have been several attempts to make this prolific, “alleged” sexual predator into a tzaddick (saint).
Years ago a group tried to have a street in New York City named after Carlebach, and then a Broadway musical was written about him by people who say they support the #MeToo movement.
Can you imagine the toll all of this has been for the survivors of Shlomo Carlebach? Just image what it was like for survivors and their support people to walk into a synagogue or another Jewish institutions or events where everyone was celebrating the man, when you considered to him to be a sex predator.
A few months ago I was contacted by an individual who is creating a documentary about Shlomo Carlebach’s life. The individual was wanting to speak to a particular survivor who disclosed her story to me several years ago. The survivor granted permission to The Awareness Center to publish her testimony anonymously on the page regarding Carlebach. The survivor was highly respected and established in her community, and needed anonymity.
I have to be honest, I was conflicted when I was asked to connect the individual creating the documentary to the survivor. I was haunted by the thought of asking any of the Carlebach survivors to share a painful and ugly part of their lives with another reporter.
The Carlebach survivors have already been through enough! How many times are these women expected to go on the record? These women owe us nothing. Why can’t what they shared years ago be enough?
When a survivor goes public, their lives will be changed forever. Yes, there’s some individuals in their lives who would be supportive — yet many survivors report that are meet them with disbelief. Many survivors are shamed, blames, harassed, stalked, loose friends, and or family members. A few survivors have reported that they have also became unemployed after their disclosures.
If Shlomo Carlebach was still alive he would be nearly a hundred years old. The first group of women he “allegedly” assault would also be around his same age. The vast majority of whom are no long with us.
Please note that I use the word “allegedly” because Shlomo Carlebach was never convicted of a crime. The reasoning being that during most of the years of Carlebach’s “alleged” reign of terror — there weren’t laws on the books to have him criminally prosecuted.
It’s important for everyone to understand Shlomo Carlebach’s “alleged” criminal behavior from a historic perspective.
No one knows for sure how long Shlomo Carlebach had been “allegedly” sexually assaulting teenage girls and adult women. What we do know is that in 1959, rabbi Moshe Feinstein wrote a rabbinic decree banning Shlomo Carlebach’s music.
Up until January 1, 1984, there were no laws on the books in the United States to have Shlomo Carlebach prosecuted for many of the sex crime he “allegedly committed. Before 1984 it was not socially acceptable to have a sex offender prosecuted. The belief was that the blame of a sex crime belonged to those who were victimized, and not the offender.
Up until 1972 there were no rape crisis center in the United States for survivors of sex crimes to get help. The first rape crisis centers were established in major cities and politically active towns such as Berkeley, New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. They had little funding and we’re not a place women in the Jewish Orthodox world would visit.
Rape Crisis Centers had little funding until The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) was past, which has been a federal law (Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, H.R. 3355) which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994.
Sadly during the decades of Carlebach’s reign of terror against women, folks didn’t make police reports. Instead the women and family members of who were assaulted went to their rabbis or other community leaders to make complaints. Nothing was done to stop the perpetrators. The women and parents of children were told to keep the assaults quiet or the women and children when they became marriage age would not get good marriage partners, also were told no one would believe them and or would be blamed for the assaults.
Like many children of sexual predators, it’s completely understandable that Carlebach’s daughters are still having a difficult time coming to terms with all aspects of their fathers life, yet the fact is that according to reports and disclosures Shlomo Carlebach “allegedly” sexually assaulted thousands of women during his life.
Contact rabbi Angela W. Buchdahl
(212) 838-5122 x1000
