Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The High Holy Days

I never thought I'd use the word "High" and "Holy" in the same sentence, it seems too spiritual - in a time of un-spirituality. I go to shul Yom Kippur night and pray for G-D to forgive me. The crowded shul, made me feel claustrophobic. Somehow my heart wasn't buying into this Yom Kippur davening. There was a fellow to my left who was SCREAMING on top of his lungs. He was yelling from the machzor, and frankly my ears were ringing. Perhaps he REALLY was doing tshuvah, and i commend him for that, but doesn't G-D hear us in any kind of tone. Certainley, yelling and screaming, like the sound resmebling some death metal music, is not what hashem intended from us during yom kippur, is it?

I heard him crying during shemonei esrei, and somehow, this all didn't seem right to me. I wanted to run out of shul right then. I couldn't take not even one more minute of this. I felt in my heart, that this was all one big show. I felt that this day of forgiveness was all an act. Scream, yell, and cry, as did many - what does it all mean if everyone goes back to their sinning ways right after Yom Kippur is over? What kind of movie script is this? What do all those tears shed mean, if we don't mean to change our ways?


So berate me if you will, but i am not buying into this fakearoo mentality, that coincides with frummies doing what they do best - going through the motions of a Rosh hashonah and a Yom Kippur, as if we are really so sorry for our indecent ways and our foolish decisions, and our deadly silence that has killed and ruined many victims of child abuse throughout the decades. I wanted to be forgiven for my misdeeds and my wrongdoing, yet somehow i couldn't bring myself to do it together with everyone else in this crowded shul on this yom kippur night. After shmonei Esrei, i retreated back to my home, and said the rest of the prayers there all by myself. The next day, i went to another synogogue, and found it a lot more refreshing. The people in this shul were mostly senior citizens, and i felt a certain bond and closeness to them. The melodies and songs we sang praising hashem and asking him to forgive us, was very uplifiting and moving. One elderly man who was well into his 90's, asked me if he had to say "vei noaam" by maariv following Neila prayers. I had noticed him throughout davening. I noticed it was hard for him to stand, but he did so anyway. I wanted to hug him and say to him, a man who has reached a ripe old age, such as yourself, has nothing to worry about. The sincerity of this man, overtook me. I wished him "gezunte year" and he wished the same for me. I hope i get to see him next year again.

Well, it is now official. A new Jewish year is here. Will it bear us more treifa chicken and meat scandals? Will child molestation and other forms of child abuse, continue to flourish, in our schools and neighborhoods, or will someone have the guts to put a stop to it? Will power and greed corrupt more of our so called rabbi's and leaders? Will the "frummies" continue to unequivocally defend the evil, and paint the victims as the problem? Will the abuse of the Torah and perversion of it, still be used to bash those who seek the truth? Will all the excuses such as loshon harah, mesira, chilul hashem etc. still be the tactic of the "frummies" who will defend to no end, the malicious and unrepentant people, who do NOTHING to defend and help our children, the victims of every imaginable crimes committed against them?

I am happy that a very bad person is no longer a threat to children. B'H, "Rabbi" Yehuda Nussbaum is no longer employed at YOB. It took a lot of hard work and dedication, and hopefully this man will never ever abuse children again. The question though remains. What about accountability for those who allowed this inexplicable behavior to continue day after day, month after month, and year after year? "Rabbi" Manis Mandel, "Rabbi' Shlomo Mandel, "Rabbi" Yaakov Mandel - All knew good and well about child molestation and abuse charges against Nussbaum, for years and years, and yet tried to cover it up by using the many excuses "frummies" love to use. They blamed the victims, blamed the parents, went into denial, and then started using threats and intimidation to try and back us off. And these people still have jobs in chinuch? That is a huge inexcusable crime. The Mandel's used a series of mob-like maneuvering in a bid to cover their tracks, but as the saying goes - You can run but you cannot hide. Time has come for Shlomo Mandel to rid himself from YOB, or face the inevitable consequences of us getting rid of him.

Now, tell me if this picture makes sense to you. A father searches for a Yeshiva for his pre-1a son. He has a difficult time getting his son in any of the Brooklyn Yeshiva's, because he applied late. He looks into YOB - and they tell the father they will run a full background check on the child, as well as the family of the child. YOB, after much consideration, will accept the child, providing the tuition is adequately paid. Kid comes home from school one day, and tells his father his rebbe hit him (new school year 2006-2007 just started). Father speaks to the rebbe who admits hitting child on the hand. He apologizes and promises it won't happen again. Now, why the father would send his son to YOB after knowing the abuse that goes on there, is a little disturbing to me, but i realize why the father did it, he was desperate. What astounds me even more, though, is that abuse is STILL taking place, this after us exposing YOB and forcing Nussbaum to the unemployment field. Yes, some can make an argument that hitting a child on his hand, is not that terrible, yet, I argue, that it is most definitely very wrong for a rebbe to hit a child, for any reason, even on the hands. There are other non-violent methods that work great in classroom management and in chinuch. It is NOT a Rebbe's place to hit or abuse students in any way - not in pre-1a, not in 5th grade, not in 9th grade, and not in any grade. This is a BIG problem, that occurs WITH the parents approval at the many chasideshe yeshivas, and many non-chasideshe yeshivas. If a parent wants to teach their children right from wrong, and feel hitting them on the hand LIGHTLY, will get the response they were looking for, then even though i do not agree with that technique, i can relate somewhat to that. However, a Rebbe, teacher, or any other outsider, has no business hitting kids, even if they are hitting them LIGHTLY (which more times than not, is a BEATING of a lifetime they won't soon forget).

Perhaps, yeshiva institutions should begin retiring their Rebbeim along with a compensation package, once they reach a certain age. Too many times, these old rebbeim are forced back into the only profession they know, purely for parnassah, and not for the dedication and love of the job. Therefore, they become impatient, arrogant, impulsive, and abusive, and who suffers most because of it? The children! It is time to change that trend now. I am not tying to infer that only old rebeim abuse children, quite the contrary. Young and old can be abusive. However, I think once a rebbe reaches retirement age, it's best he call it a career and get some retirement benefits. This will alive some of the abuse in our yeshiva's. And especially, in the instance of this pre1a rebbe, who I do not think is a bad person, yet, surely he has reached his limitations. And surely the Abu garib mentality that is YOB, has rubbed off on him and others.

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The FBI is examining former Rep. Mark Foley's e-mail exchanges with teenagers to determine if they violated federal law, an agency spokesman said Sunday.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the FBI is "conducting an assessment to see if there's been a violation of federal law." He had no further comment.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert requested Sunday that the Justice Department conduct an investigation into Foley's electronic messages to teenage boys — a lurid scandal that has put House Republicans in political peril.

"As Speaker of the House, I hereby request that the Department of Justice conduct an investigation of Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages to determine to what extent any of his actions violated federal law," Hastert, R-Ill., wrote in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress also called Sunday for a criminal probe. White House counselor Dan Bartlett called the allegations against Foley shocking, but said President Bush hadn't learned of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old boy and instant messages to other boys before the news broke last week.

"There is going to be, I'm sure, a criminal investigation into the particulars of this case," Bartlett said. "We need to make sure that the page system is one in which children come up here and can work and make sure that they are protected."

Foley, R-Fla., quit Congress on Friday after the disclosure of the e-mails he sent to a former congressional page and sexually suggestive instant messages he sent to other high school pages.

A law enforcement official, who asked for anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said agents from the FBI's cyber division are looking into the text of some of the messages and checking to see how many e-mails were sent and how many computers were used. They are also looking to see if some of the teens who were sent messages will cooperate with the probe.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the Foley case "repugnant, but equally as bad is the possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a congressional seat this election year."

Reid said the case should be handled outside Congress.

"Under laws that Congressman Foley helped write, soliciting sex from a minor online is a federal crime," Reid said. "The alleged crimes here are far outside the scope of any congressional committee, and the attorney general should open a full-scale investigation immediately."

In his letter to Gonzales on Sunday, Hastert asked the Justice Department to investigate "who had specific knowledge of the content of any sexually explicit communications between Mr. Foley and any former or current House pages and what actions such individuals took, if any, to provide them to law enforcement."

The scope of the investigation, Hastert wrote, should include "any and all individuals who may have been aware of this matter — be they members of Congress, employees of the House of Representatives or anyone outside the Congress."

Hastert also sent a letter to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Sunday requesting that he "direct the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an investigation of Mr. Foley's conduct with current and former House pages."

Hastert maintained at first that he had learned only last week about the e-mails. But Rep. Thomas Reynolds (news, bio, voting record), head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he had told Hastert months ago about concerns Foley sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Reynolds, R-N.Y., is under attack from Democrats who say he did too little to protect the boy.

Hastert acknowledged over the weekend that his aides had, in fact, referred the matter to the House clerk and to the congressman who was chairman of the board that oversees the page program. Hastert's office said, however, it had not known the e-mails were anything more than "over-friendly."

Majority Republicans engineered a House vote Friday that refers the Foley matter to the House ethics committee, but lets that panel decide whether there should even be an investigation.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, pressed the committee on Sunday to begin investigating and make a preliminary report within 10 days. She demanded to know who knew of the messages, whether Foley had other contacts with pages and when the Republican leadership was notified of Foley's conduct.

"Republican leaders have admitted to knowing about Mr. Foley's outrageous behavior for six months to a year, and they chose to cover it up rather than to protect these children," she wrote.

Congressional pages, a staple of Washington politics since the 1820s, are high school students who serve as temporary gofers in the House and Senate. The program nearly ended in the early 1980s due to alleged sexual misconduct and drug use.

Republican leaders say it is their duty to ensure House pages' safety, and are now creating a toll-free hot line for pages and their families to call to confidentially report any incidents. They also will consider adopting new rules on communications between lawmakers and pages.

Foley, who is 52 and single, was co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. In a statement Friday, he said, "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."

16 comments:

exposemolesters said...

The drek who wished UOJ to get hit by a car, while running home to break his fast after Yom Kippur, will have to live with the shadow - that the bad he wished on uoj may ultimately happen to him.

Sadley, and coincidentally, a Russian Jew, was fatally struck by a car on queens blvd, on his way home to break the fast, after Yom Kippur prayers.

exposemolesters said...

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/061010/480/580a5b9e453a4edc94aaccc05ec5b637&g=events/pl/092906markfoley

House Speaker Dennis Hastert walks away from the media after answering questions Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006, in Aurora, Ill. Hastert said Tuesday he'll dismiss anyone on his staff found to have covered up concerns about ex-Rep. Mark Foley's approaches to former pages.

exposemolesters said...

Bush calls Foley's conduct disgusting

President Bush on Wednesday called ex-Rep. Mark Foley's approaches to House male pages "disgusting" and backed Speaker Dennis Hastert's efforts to learn how officials handled the problem.

Bush's remarks at a White House news conference came as Peggy Sampson, supervisor of the page program, was questioned before the House ethics committee. The panel is not only investigating Foley's inappropriate and sometimes salacious electronic messages to former pages, but whether House officials covered up Foley's come-ons.

Sampson would not comment to reporters after the more than two-hour closed session. The unique page program allows high schoolers, sponsored by their congressman, to attend classes in the congressional page school and work for legislators as errand-runners.

The committee also questioned Wren Ivester, who is in charge of the pages sponsored by Democratic lawmakers.

Asked about the scandal, Bush said, "This is disgusting behavior when a member of Congress betrays the trust of the Congress and the family that sent a young page to serve." And he defended Hastert, who said he first learned of the approaches in late September.

"I think the speaker's strong statements have made it clear to not only the party ... but to the country that he wants to find out the facts," Bush said. "Denny is very credible as far as I'm concerned. He's done a fine job as speaker."

Foley sent e-mails and instant messages, some of them sexually explicit, to male pages after they left the program.

A four-member investigative panel of the evenly divided ethics panel is sorting out conflicts — including whether Hastert's office learned of the Florida Republican's inappropriate conduct in 2002, 2003 or 2005. All those years were mentioned, depending on who is telling the story.

Kirk Fordham, Foley's one-time chief of staff, is scheduled for questioning Thursday before a House ethics committee investigative panel. He said he notified Hastert chief of staff Scott Palmer in 2002 or 2003 about Foley's inappropriate conduct, and that he subsequently learned that Palmer met with Foley.

An internal review released by Hastert's office on Sept. 30 says the first notice to Hastert's aides about Foley wasn't until the fall of 2005 — and it didn't come from Fordham.

Rather, the review said, it came from the office of Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., after the lawmaker learned of an overly friendly — but not sexually explicit — e-mail from the Florida Republican to a page from the congressman's state.

Palmer has publicly disputed Fordham's account. It was not clear when the ethics committee will question him.

The contradiction between the staff aides is almost outdone by Hastert's conflicts with statements by two members of his leadership team: Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and the House Republican campaign chairman, Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y.

Longtime conservative leader Paul Weyrich said Tuesday that Hastert had assured him that Boehner was wrong when he said that he had told Hastert months ago about the page problem with Foley.

"As to Congressman Thomas M. Reynolds, the speaker said, 'If he had mentioned this problem to me, I surely would have taken notice,'" Weyrich said in an e-mailed account of a phone conversation with Hastert.

Weyrich quoted Hastert as saying that Reynolds often came to him with numerous requests to help incumbents in trouble. "The speaker said he signs off on the majority of requests and only listens with one ear because the requests are repetitive," Weyrich said.

"Did Reynolds during such a session drop the bombshell about Foley in the speaker's lap without the speaker's comprehending what was being told to him? 'That is possible but unlikely,' the speaker said. In any case, he has absolutely no recollection," Weyrich said.

Boehner's spokesman, Kevin Madden, said slightly different accounts were not surprising because the events took place four months ago.

A spokesman for Hastert had no comment. A Reynolds spokesman, L.D. Platt, said Hastert had already said he didn't recall the conversation.

The FBI, trying to determine whether any crimes were committed, on Tuesday questioned a former page in Oklahoma City who received salacious messages from Foley.

Former page Jordan Edmund and his attorney, Stephen Jones, met with agents for 2 1/2 hours.

Retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the only openly gay Republican House member, pushed the timeline on Foley's e-mails back to possibly 2001, the earliest year in the timetable.

Recounting his actions, Kolbe said a former page contacted his office to report receiving e-mails from Foley that made him uncomfortable. "I was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit. It was my recommendation that this complaint be passed along to Rep. Foley's office and the clerk who supervised the page program. This was done promptly," he said.

exposemolesters said...

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/061009_Issue/060930_Foley_hsmall.widec.jpg

The Wrong Message
Rep. Mark Foley helped exploited children by day. A slew of e-mails suggests he exploited them by night. How the scandal may affect the fight for Capitol Hill.

Oct. 9, 2006 issue - Mark Foley, a six-term Republican congressman from Florida, championed the protection of children from sexual predators. Chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, he often spoke out about the need to catch pedophiles. In July, he attended a signing ceremony at the White House for the Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. "We track library books better than we do sexual predators," he had argued in support of the bill.

It took some time, but last week Foley himself was tracked down. Confronted by ABC News with sexually explicit messages he had exchanged with 16- and 17-year-old congressional pages, Foley abruptly resigned his seat. (He did not protest his innocence; whether he committed a crime is unclear.) Politicians and preachers crusading against sin while sinning themselves is an old morality play. But the politics of Foley's downfall are messy and intriguing, coming just weeks before hotly contested congressional elections. The Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to cover up Foley's indiscretions until after Election Day, while the Republicans accused the Democrats of leaking the story just in time to cost the GOP a crucial seat.

An energetic, capable politician, Foley appeared to be well matched to his prosperous Palm Beach district. His sexuality did not seem to be an issue with voters. In Washington he made little effort to hide his sexual orientation, and neither his colleagues nor his staff seemed to worry that he might be a predator. Gregarious and fun-loving, he was known for hosting raucous parties and making off-color jokes. "All of his colleagues knew" that Foley was gay, said a former aide, who asked for anonymity discussing Foley's personal life. "It was the worst-kept secret in Washington."

Radical gay groups sometimes "out" closeted right-wingers, but Foley was insulated against charges of hypocrisy because he voted against a congressional ban on gay marriage. (Last week Democrats were careful to say that the issue was not his sexuality but potentially criminal behavior toward minors.) Foley's sexuality may have inhibited his political ambitions, however. In 2003, he briefly ran for the Senate before dropping out, against the urgings of some party leaders who wanted him to stay in the race. He held a press conference to denounce rumors that he was gay, without confirming or denying them.

Foley's sexual leanings were also well known, or at least suspected, by a particularly vulnerable group on Capitol Hill. Every year Congress hires about 100 pages, who can be seen in their distinctive blue uniforms scurrying through the halls, running errands for lawmakers. The pages have been embroiled in earlier sex scandals. In 1983, a pair of congressmen admitted to sexual relations with underage pages (one with a girl, one with a boy). After that, the pages were housed in a dormitory and fairly closely chaperoned. A former female page, who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy, told NEWSWEEK that she and other pages had regularly seen Foley stop and talk to pages on the House floor and in the cloakroom, lingering with them and asking them to describe their experiences in Congress. "We just gradually figured out he was flirting with the guys," said the page. "It made a lot of the guys uneasy. He was kind of creepy."

In late 2005, one of the pages, a young man from Louisiana, went to an aide to his congressman, Rodney Alexander. The page had received some e-mails from Foley that, the boy said, "freaked me out." Alexander went to Republican Party leaders, and Foley was summoned to see GOP Congressman John Shimkus, the chairman of the House Page Board. The e-mails between Foley and the page were subject to interpretation—Foley had asked for a photograph of the boy, talked about going to the gym and asked if he was OK after Hurricane Katrina. Foley insisted that he was acting only as the boy's "mentor." Shimkus warned Foley to be "especially mindful of his conduct" with the pages. The boy's parents did not want to pursue the matter.

That might have been the end of it, but rumors and copies of the messages began to rattle around newsrooms in Florida and Washington, possibly fed by Foley's political opponents. Last Thursday night ABC News broke the story. That seemed to open the Internet floodgates. The next night ABC posted a follow-up on its Web site, showing instant messages between Foley and congressional pages that were far more sexually explicit. Many more, and much seamier, message exchanges began to pour in to ABC. Some were mildly crude. "Do I make you a little horny?" Foley is said to have asked one page. Others show Foley, under the signer Maf54, engaged in graphic Internet sex with minors, ABC reported. During one session a page instant-messages Maf54, "brb [be right back] ... my mom is yelling." ABC confronted Foley with a batch of these messages, and within hours he had penned a one-sentence resignation note. Foley issued a statement saying that he was "deeply sorry" for letting down his family and the voters, but made no reference to any e-mails. It is not known if he is under any kind of criminal investigation.

The politics heated up right away. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi took the floor to demand an investigation. Her Democratic colleagues instantly began agitating to know what the Republican leadership had known about Foley and when it had known it. The GOP leadership did not help its cause by putting out garbled or conflicting accounts, though there was no proof of any kind of deliberate cover-up. Late Saturday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt issued a statement calling for a criminal investigation. But some Republicans were also curious about the timing of the revelations. Foley's district is strongly Republican, but he had faced a serious challenger, Tim Mahoney. The GOP can pick a new candidate, but it may be too late to get Foley's name off the ballot, which could cost the Republicans a seat. The struggle for control of the House may be so close, with a 15-seat swing hanging in the balance, that a single seat can make a real difference.

While congressmen caught in a sex scandal is nothing new, the way the story broke shows the power of Web technology to influence politics. Few people may have even been aware that instant messages can be saved and copied, but they have turned out to be a powerful weapon. Before the Internet, a story like Foley's might have kicked around for months, with conflicting accounts, and possibly never surfaced. Once the existence of the e-mails became known, Foley was swept away within hours.

Anonymous said...

Mark Foley, Yudi Kolko, Yehuda Nussbaum, Eisman, Avrohom Mondrowitz, Leizerowitz, Shlomo Mandel, and Lipa Margulis are opening up a butcher shop (Strictly Glatt Kosher, after we label it with our special stickers). Looking for youngerleit who can help us in the kitchen. We do not discriminate, except that we are searching for young boys. Preferably, the ideal employee, will enjoy the warm comforting, experience, that our fine staff would like to offer you.

Very liberal and understanding employers. We offer benefits such as clothing optional environment. Our staff goes nude, and we encourage our employees to do the same. Should you feel uncomftorable with that, we are always available for some one on one counseling. Do not miss out on this great opportunity. limited time offer. We look forward to accepting you in our Glatt Kosher facility real soon.

Anonymous said...

I watched the ABC nightline piece on Avrohom Mondrowitz and I can say that i am sickened and outraged by the silence of the jewish community at this sicko's penetrating (yes PENETRATING for the rabonim who want assurance of that)abuse of young boys.

My kipa and my Jewishness is a joke. I do not want to be associated with this hypocritical behavior, if that's the way Jewish people act. And yes, this is a BIG chilul Hashem for Jews and gentiles.

exposemolesters said...

Does anyone care?????????????

ABC News
Child Sex Abuse Case Still Haunts
The Cold Case of Avrohom Mondrowitz and the Silencing of a Community
By ROXANNA SHERWOOD

Oct. 11, 2006 — - Retired New York Police Department Det. Pat Kehoe still remembers a phone call she got more than 20 years ago, from a person making allegations that a rabbi was sexually abusing children in his neighborhood.

"I never received a call like that in my whole career in the New York City Police Department. Never," Kehoe told Cynthia McFadden in a recent interview.

"I'll never forget it because unfortunately it was my birthday, November 21 1984. I was working in the Brooklyn Sex Crimes squad and I received an anonymous call from a male who started to say that there was a rabbi and gave the name and he was abusing people on this block," she said.

Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, as he called himself, lived on a tree-lined block in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Kehoe and her partner, Sal Catafulmo, went out to the neighborhood where Italians and Hasidic Jews lived side-by-side.

At one of the first addresses they tried, she says a resident told her "Everyone knows Rabbi Mondrowitz. He's good to all our children. He buys them bicycles and takes them away on weekends and things."

That might sound like a recommendation, but not to Kehoe.

"With that information I got very scared," she said.

Kehoe's background in an NYPD pedophilia squad taught her to recognize the signs of pedophilia.

"Pedophiles have a pattern with children to get their confidence and send their so-called love, you might say, and buy them things," she said.

What she heard from the children themselves only confirmed her gut feelings.

"We brought them in without their parents," Kehoe said. "They started to tell us, 'The rabbi is our friend. He takes us away,' and things like that. As the questions became more difficult for the children -- 'Did anything ever happen? Did anything sexual ever happen? Are you aware of it happening to anyone else while you were there?' -- they all broke down and cried, each one separately."

According to Kehoe, the children painted a clear picture of abuse. Kehoe says the children told her that the rabbi had fondled them, had sexual relations with them, and that he had fondled others in front of them.

Apparently the self-proclaimed rabbi -- Mondrowitz had no formal rabbinical credentials -- was counseling young Orthodox boys in the basement office of his home in Borough Park.

Kehoe and her partner immediately obtained a search warrant for his home. When they got to the address, there was no answer at the door, so Kehoe climbed through the basement window.

The alleged pedophile and his family had fled and his house was completely vacant but for what Kehoe says were up to a hundred files of Orthodox boys that Mondrowitz had been counseling in his basement office.

Kehoe and her partner reached out to all of the Orthodox boys' families, she says, but no one would talk.

"They were members of the Hassidic community, and as we found out through the investigation -- at the time I wasn't completely aware of all the different rules in the Hassidic community. And one of the things is that if one of them is ever sexually abused, whether it be by a pedophile or raped, there's a very large stigma that prevents them from getting married and going forward with their lives if this is ever found out or brought to anyone's attention," she said.

The only victims that cooperated with the investigation were Italian. They were neighborhood boys who trusted the rabbi because he bought them gifts like bicycles. Not a single Orthodox Jewish boy or their parents would talk to the police.

The statements of four Italian boys, aged 11 through 16, were the basis for the indictment against Avrohom Mondrowitz. He was facing eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child, and five counts of sodomy in the first degree.

The allegations against Mondrowitz were shocking to those who knew him. Rabbi Herbert Bomzer has been a fixture among ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn for more than 50 years. He is president of the Flatbush Rabbinical Board, composed of nearly 100 rabbis. He hired Mondrowitz to counsel boys at a school for Orthodox boys in the late 1970s.

"He was very effective, so much so that toward the end of the school year when they were planning the graduation exercise the student reps requested that I should invite him to be the guest speaker at the exercise," Bomzer said.

Young boys were equally impressed with the charismatic older man. Mark Weiss was one of them. At 13 years old, growing up in Chicago, Weiss says he was having trouble fitting in and reconciling his orthodoxy with the outside world. In the summer of 1980, his father sent Weiss to New York to receive counseling from Mondrowitz.

"He had kind of a sporty little car, and he had this really cool sound system in there. And right off the bat I remember being just completely overwhelmed with just like how cool this guy is," Weiss said. "He took me out to eat. He took me out to lunch, to dinner. He took me to an amusement park. He took me sightseeing here."

Weiss trusted the man so much that with his family away on a trip to the mountains, he didn't hesitate when Mondrowitz invited him to sleep in his own bed with him, telling him, Weiss says, that it might be more comfortable there than in another bedroom in the front of the house.

What Weiss says happened in the rabbi's bedroom is something that even to this day makes him uncomfortable to talk about, but he knows how important it is to tell his story, not only for the sake of raising consciousness but for his own healing.

He says that over the course of the week he spent with Mondrowitz, the older man sodomized him on multiple occasions.

Weiss says he tucked the experience away in the deepest recesses of his mind and did not think of it again, that is, until five years later, in 1984, when as an 18-year-old, he was celebrating the holidays in Chicago where he says Mondrowitz was also visiting family.

"I look across the room, and across the room I see Remel Mondrowitz," Weiss said. "It just hit me like a ton of bricks what had happened and I froze. And I just sort of went into a state of shock."

Everything came back to him, he said.

"I realized that I was sexually molested when I was thirteen years old," he said

Weiss immediately turned to his parents for guidance. He first told his mother.

"She was just completely incredulous. She couldn't accept what I was telling her," Weiss said. "What I was telling her was essentially shaking the entire infrastructure to its foundation, really, because it was more than just me being molested. It was just the unraveling of the entire foundation of her support system and of her religious infrastructure."

His father was also devastated and confused -- after all, this was a man he respected and knew. Weiss said his father told him Mondrowitz was a frum man -- a religious Jew.

His father's belief that this is perhaps an experience better kept quiet is a view, Weiss said, his father still maintains today.

"Just a few short days ago, my father was in a panic that this was just going to turn into a huge Chillul Hashem, which is a disgrace of God's name," Weiss said. "A bad image would be cast upon Judaism and orthodox Judaism and the Jewish people."

Now a 39-year-old husband and father of three sons, Weiss said he has carried his painful memory of abuse silently for years. About five years ago, when he and his family were living in Denver, he saw an announcement in a Jewish publication for an event for survivors of sexual molestation.

He was ecstatic at the prospect that his community was finally prepared to confront this problem, so he immediately booked a flight to New York.

"It was going to be this night in which survivors were to be able to meet with leaders of the Jewish community and they were to be able to address and to tell their stories essentially and to be heard for the first time, really, in a public forum in the right wing religious community," he said. But the event did not unfold as he had imagined or hoped it would.

"It was very clear, unfortunately, that the rabbis who were there and the leaders of our community didn't really have an understanding of what it was they were there to do," he said.

"None of the survivors got to say a word. Any questions that were to be asked were written down on these little index cards and they sort of cherry picked the most benign questions and subsequent comments that were followed up by the rabbis really had nothing to do with actual sexual molestation whatsoever," he said.

When the evening was over, Weiss said he was devastated.

"Anybody who was really a victim and really had gone through some horrible experiences was really shell-shocked. We sort of all walked around like we had just survived a plane crash."

A Fall 2000 ad in the Jewish Image published an announcement for one such event, "Let's talk about what never happened..." and in small letters underneath "...but it did." Another ad that ran in a 2001 Jewish Observer advertising one such event bears in its heading a clear message of silence: "SHHH..."

"Because of the unwillingness to expose it, pedophiles can operate pretty safely in the orthodox community?" McFadden asked Mark Weiss. "It's fertile ground. It's fertile ground," Weiss readily replied.

"I've met victims and survivors who have been told by their rabbis they shouldn't say anything because this is what we call Lashone Harah," explained Rabbi Mark Dratch, an officer of the Rabbinical Council of America and head of JSafe, an organization to help Orthodox Jewish victims of domestic violence and sex abuse.

The biblical concept of Lashone Harah is "gossip or slander, a biblical prohibition against maligning another person, against speaking ill of another person," and holds even when the allegations being made are proven true, Dratch said.

There's another biblical concept at play when dealing with sex abuse and domestic violence in the community, he said.

"It's called Mesira. And that's a prohibition on the books of reporting fellow Jews to the authorities under any circumstances," Dratch said.

The mesira edict was published in a Yiddish-language Orthodox Brooklyn newspaper called Der Blatt in the wake of a case of a 6-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy who had brought allegations against a rabbi who had been tutoring him. The case was brought before the Brooklyn district attorney, who ultimately disbanded the grand jury on the case.

Sociologist Amy Neustein, an Orthodox Jewish woman who studies sex abuse in the community and who says she has spoken to members of the victim's family, said the Hebrew publication that ran under the title "Severe Warning and Prohibition" drove the child's family out of town.

"Rabbis sign on to this edict about Mesira stating that he who informs to the Christian authorities can be murdered at the first opportunity," Neustein said. "Well of course that sends such a chill to the family that they pick themselves up with their children, from Brooklyn and they ran out of the county."

"Victims are very hesitant to come forward," Dratch said. "Number one is the denial of the community. So there is a fear that they are not going to be believed.

"Secondly, it's -- I'll use a wonderful Yiddish word -- it's called Shanda, the shame of it all. And individuals are afraid of what the impact of their report will be on themselves personally and on their family and on the extended family," he said.

"The shame is that Mondrowitz didn't get arrested. To me that was the shame," Kehoe said.

Mondrowitz, now 58 years old, has been living comfortably in Israel since 1985, and the retired NYPD detective said she believes he has been amassing new victims.

"Hundreds, I'm sure. He's been in Israel almost 20 years," Kehoe said. "It's a sickness. It's something that you have to do every time when you find a new victim."

In the wake of recent allegations against another Brooklyn Orthodox rabbi, several Orthodox Jewish men alleging that they too were sexually abused by Mondrowitz have come forward to tell of the abuse that they say has haunted them.

Michael Lesher, an attorney who represents six alleged victims of Mondrowitz, including Mark Weiss, said it is similar to what has happened with the Catholic Church.

"The comparisons are obvious, but I would say at the same time that what we are seeing in the Jewish community is in some respects worse because it's more institutionalized," he said.

Rabbi Mark Dratch agrees.

"As an outsider to the Catholic Church, it seems to me that there is an infrastructure or a hierarchy and they have the mechanism, they really do have the mechanism to effect systemic change in a much easier way in a much more efficient way and a much quicker way because of that hierarchy," Dratch said. "In the Orthodox world, we don't have such a hierarchy. There is no pope and there are no levels of responsibility and answerability."

Dratch said there is no way to really gauge how widespread the problem is in the community, "because of this conspiracy of silence."

All parties involved with this story wanted to make sure that one thing was absolutely clear -- that there is sex abuse against children in every community. They would like to see changes in the way some rabbinical leaders handle the allegations when they surface.

"The biggest thing that I worry about really is that I represent the story well and not pre-cast it off in way that this just looks like a besmirch of -- a black eye and a besmirching of the Orthodox Jewish world," Weiss said. "But the truth is, is that it is a black eye to everybody. This problem knows no borders and no boundaries."

"The community senses there is a crisis here and that something very serious needs to be done," Dratch said.

ABC News easily found Mondrowitz living in a quiet Jerusalem neighborhood, his name prominently displayed on a mailbox. He even lectures at the Jerusalem College of Engineering.

He politely declined to be interviewed for the story, and thanked us for the opportunity.

"Mondrowitz proved to be brilliant at working the system," Lesher said. "He understands this Orthodox culture, if possible, better than we do. He understands just what it will do and just what it won't do, what he can get away with and when he has to run. He's manipulated it masterfully and that is really a shameful commentary on the community. That a man like this understands it so well and has been able to turn it so well to his advantage all these years."

"And I was told when I embarked on this crusade to examine, explore sex abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community that Mondrowitz was the key, what he was able to do and how he comported himself and how the community so adroitly managed to cover up for what he did and to keep things quiet as he was out of the country. Just to keep the victims suppressed. To keep their voices silenced," Amy Neustein said.

Though some members of the Orthodox community told ABC News this is a very old case and very old charges with very deep wounds and that it would be better to just let it go now, but Lesher told a different story.

"That's not what my clients believe and they're the victims carrying the wounds," he said. "That's not what I believe and I belong to the community they do."

Lesher, who plans to push the Brooklyn district attorney to try to extradite Mondrowitz.

"This man is not an ancient man. He's only 58 years old now. He was 37 when he fled the country. These victims are not ancient people. These are people in their late 30s and early 40s. They are seething, still seething with what was done to them," Lesher said. "And as one of them put it to me, every day that Mondrowitz can live openly in Israel knowing that he's safe from prosecution because nobody cares, is another day that they are victimized all over again."

The question of whether Mondrowitz could be extradited to stand trial in the United States is unclear. When Mondrowitz fled, then Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman made swift moves to have the alleged pedophile extradited, but under Israeli law at the time, sodomy against boys was not recognized as an extraditable offense, so she was unsuccessful.

Israeli law has since been changed.

The current Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes, is not trying to extradite at this time.

Weiss said he believes that speaking about the issue of sex abuse is the only answer.

"Throwing it under the rug will do no good. You need to just come out and say it and you know what, we are better people for it," he said. "Nobody's going to look down upon the Orthodox Jewish community negatively because we're talking about this. They are going to come to admire us for being straight about it and admitting we have a problem and we're going to solve it.

Anonymous said...

Avrohom Mondrowitz is a dangerous, perverted, and sickening pedophile. It is absolutley a Mitzvah to kill this RODEF.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what shul Avrohom Mondrowitz goes to in Israel?

exposemolesters said...

I am urging anyone who has information as to the wearabouts and activities of Avrohom Mondrowitz, to please email me.

matzil_nefoshos@yahoo.com

If you are currently being victimized by Mondrowitz, or know someone that is, please email me, and let us work together to put this child molester and sodomizer, out of business now!

exposemolesters said...

At first I was not going to publish this comment, it is too un-intelligent. However, you judge for yourselves.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The High Holy Days":

Why dont you guys get over it already--
studies have shown that kids get hurt by the publicity and the legal process-- NOT by the 'molestation'.
In fact most boys have fond memories for the man who loved them.
Just check the NAMBLA website for the data!!!

exposemolesters said...

I went to the NAMBLA website and my investigation has uncovered the following:

NAMBLA
WHO WE ARE


WELCOME! The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was formed in 1978. It was inspired by the success of a campaign based in Boston's gay community to defend against a local witchhunt.

NAMBLA's goal is to end the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships by:

# building understanding and support for such relationships;
# educating the general public on the benevolent nature of man/boy love;
# cooperating with lesbian, gay, feminist, and other liberation movements;
# supporting the liberation of persons of all ages from sexual prejudice and oppression.

Our membership is open to everyone sympathetic to man/boy love and personal freedom.

NAMBLA calls for the empowerment of youth in all areas, not just the sexual. We support greater economic, political and social opportunities for young people and denounce the rampant ageism that segregates and isolates them in fear and mistrust. We believe sexual feelings are a positive life force. We support the rights of youth as well as adults to choose the partners with whom they wish to share and enjoy their bodies.

We condemn sexual abuse and all forms of coercion. Freely-chosen relationships differ from unwanted sex. Present laws, which focus only on the age of the participants, ignore the quality of their relationships. We know that differences in age do not preclude mutual, loving interaction between persons. NAMBLA is strongly opposed to age-of-consent laws and all other restrictions which deny men and boys the full enjoyment of their bodies and control over their own lives.

NAMBLA does not provide encouragement, referrals or assistance for people seeking sexual contacts. NAMBLA does not engage in any activities that violate the law, nor do we advocate that anyone else should do so.

We call for fundamental reform of the laws regarding relations between youths and adults. Today, many thousands of men and boys are unjustly ground into the disfunctional criminal justice system. Blindly, this system condemns consensual, loving relationships between younger and older people. NAMBLA's Prisoner Program, with limited resources, works to provide a modicum of humanity to some of these people. Click here to find out more.

NAMBLA is a political, civil rights, and educational organization. We provide factual information and help educate society about the positive and beneficial nature of man/boy love.


I found this statement from NAMBLA , rather very telling. "We condemn sexual abuse and all forms of coercion. Freely-chosen relationships differ from unwanted sex.

NAMBLA does not engage in any activities that violate the law, nor do we advocate that anyone else should do so."

The Horse's mouth has spoken. Why don't you now try to bring proof that Osama bin Laden has no intention of hurting innocent people. And according to your flawed logic, children are the puppets of older men, and putting them through a trial is VERY HURTFUL to them, so let us disregard that they were forcibly raped, fondeled, and abused (for the boy's sake of course).

You are living in wonderland my friend!

exposemolesters said...

yidwhocares,

Wonderful idea. In fact, I am working on doing just that. Soon, there will be a blog/chat for victims of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and mental abuse.
I will announce it real soon. Thanks again for the kind words.

exposemolesters said...

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Writer

Police believe it was the children in their swimsuits that caught the attention of pedophile Joseph Edward Duncan III, triggering a spree of savage murder, kidnapping and child rape.

The registered sex offender, on the run from a child molestation charge in Minnesota, drove past the rural home where 8-year-old Shasta Groene and her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, were frolicking in May 2005, investigators say.

Duncan's trial, on charges of killing three people so he could kidnap the two children for sex, begins Monday with jury selection in this northern Idaho city. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

And after the state case ends, federal prosecutors are expected to file charges against Duncan in the abduction of Shasta and Dylan, and the slaying of Dylan. They have already said they, too, will seek the death penalty.

Shasta was rescued weeks later in a dramatic encounter in a Coeur d'Alene restaurant.

According to court records, Duncan stalked the Groene family for several days to learn their habits. Then he donned night-vision goggles and entered their home in the early morning of May 16.

He surprised the sleeping adults and bound Brenda Groene, her 13-year-old son Slade and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, then beat them to death with a claw hammer and abducted the two younger children, the documents allege.

The court records say Duncan, 43, molested the children for seven weeks at a primitive campsite near St. Regis, Mont., possibly capturing some of his actions on the digital video and still cameras he carried. At some point Dylan was killed.

Then Duncan drove with Shasta back to Coeur d'Alene, stopping at a Denny's along Interstate 90 around 2 a.m. on July 2, 2005. Staff and customers recognized the girl from the many photos plastered throughout the region and called police.

Duncan, 43, told arresting officers he was returning the girl to her father.

A pool of some 800 local residents has been called in an effort to find a jury that can give him a fair trial.

However, sentiment in this conservative region runs strongly against Duncan, who spent most of his adult life in prison for molesting children. Bumper stickers saying "Kill Duncan" abound.

"Duncan has been prejudged and sentenced to death," public defender John Adams complained in unsuccessfully arguing that a jury should be brought in from elsewhere.

Prosecutors said finding people who had not heard of the case would be impossible.

The judge in the case ruled on Friday that jury selection will be closed to the public and news media to ensure Duncan gets a fair trial.

Kootenai County prosecutor Bill Douglas has rejected Duncan's offers to confess to the crimes he is charged with — plus other crimes for which he is not yet charged — in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. A spokeswoman in Douglas' office said last week he did not want to comment because of the pending jury selection.

Federal public defender Roger Peven, who will represent Duncan in the federal court case, says the defendant also wants to spare Shasta the trauma of having to testify against him in court.

"It's the right thing to do," Peven said last week.

Shasta is under additional stress because her father, Steve, is battling throat cancer, which has required the removal of his larynx. Steve Groene has asked prosecutors to settle the case to spare his daughter.

The plea bargain request included an offer to give investigators access to encrypted files in Duncan's computer, which are thought to contain graphic evidence of his crimes.

Experts have yet to unlock the files and Duncan, a computer expert, has bragged that the encryption protection he used is so strong that it will take authorities three decades to crack it.

Since his arrest, Duncan has also been implicated in the unsolved deaths of two children in Seattle and one in Southern California.

exposemolesters said...

It was once believed that the stereotypical pedophile was a raincoat clad "dirty old man" lurking near the neighborhood elementary school. As awareness has grown, the facts have revealed that a pedophile can come from any walk of life, any economical background, religion, or race. A pedophile could be as close as the guy next door or the "grandfatherly" man down the street. There really is no stereotypical type.

Sexual predators prey on the innocence of children. They feed on the thrill of violating trust. Their aim is to find the perfect game and capture their victim. They are child oriented, to the point of obsession. Such deviates spend their time watching children, talking to them, evaluating their mind frame. Child predators dig deep into the psyche of a child. They watch their every move and observe their feelings. As they see each mood, they watch for what activates the change and use it to play upon their emotions.

They play the game slowly. They befriend the child, play with them, and get to know them. They see their chance to advance the game, and they take each calculated move as it comes. Each step is carefully planned to draw the child closer to them. They gain their trust, reinforce it, then eventually violate it.

In an undercover surveillance operation, one child predator bragged how easy it really is while talking to another person on the Internet. He said he could spot a lonely child, who makes the easiest target. He also said without hesitation that it's so easy to gain a child's trust.

All you have to do is pay a little attention to them, make them feel special, and you have them where you want them. He used soap crayons to get the children to undress themselves, encouraged them to do more, even made it seem like so delightful, they asked him to join their fun. He also liked to play in the yard and get them wet with the water hose. Afterward, he would make a big fuss to cause them to think they would get in trouble for going home wet. Then he offered them a T-shirt to wear while he dried their clothes. He stated without reserve that he had never had to undress a child. The children were so comfortable with him that they undressed themselves. Once the clothes came off, the game advanced as he molested them.

A child's mind doesn't travel in the direction that a predator's does. They look at the world differently than an adult. They only see a new friend, who understands them and likes to be with them. These deviates finds way to enter into a relationship with a child and then lure them into the direction they have planned.

SEXUAL PREDATORS:
Will your child fall prey and become the next victim?

We ask you to make the time to talk to your child and tell them that such people exist, be sure they understand why you are telling them this.

This type of education should begin with children as young as three or four. Teach them their body is special and private. Teach them that all the areas covered by a bathing suit are private. Teach them they must never allow anyone to touch their body. Teach them not to undress in front of anyone once they are old enough to do it for themselves. Teach them to tell a parent immediately if someone asks them to undress, tries to undress them, touches them or tries to touch their private parts.

Make sure your child gets plenty of positive attention at home. Victim's are often children who feel lonely, lacking attention and interaction. Spend time with your child. Talk to them. Play with them. Make the most of the time you spend with them. Get to know your child's personality traits; habits, their mood swings. You'll be surprised at what you will learn from them as well as about them.

Teach them not to give out any personal information if someone they don't know asks them for it. Address, telephone numbers, their parent's names. This is a difficult thing for children to understand. They have to give it to teachers at school, police officers if they are lost, or paramedics if they are hurt. Try to help them understand which types of circumstances they can give out information and which ones they shouldn't. Just like a fire drill, create an imaginary situation and then ask the child if they should or shouldn't give out the information. Praise them when they get it right, and explain why they should or shouldn't if they answered incorrectly.

As parents the best thing we can do is to educate our children about the world they live in. Not everyone is good, and not everyone is bad. The bad does exist, and children need to know that. A child won't be frightened if it is approached as a fact of life. Education is the key for all of us. Children are eager to learn.

Use the cards that come in the mail, the ones with missing children, to show an example of a child who has been taken and now no one knows where they are. If you are out in public and see flyers displaying missing children bring it to the attention of your child and make them aware of how you would feel if that was their face on that flyer. Always tell them if someone ever took them from you, that you will not stop looking until you find them. Do not assume they know this. Tell them. Abductors often convince the child that their parents did not want them. It's a ploy they use to keep children from trying to contact someone at home.

Train your children to protect themselves when you are not with them. Start when they are very young and they will learn to watch for signs of something wrong by the time they will be in situations without parental supervision.

When it comes down to what you should teach your child and what you believe your child should know we realize everyone's views will differ; however, please keep in mind that the more information and understanding a child has, the better kinds of judgments they can make. We would all like to believe that our children will use their own instincts; however, a child doesn't think that anything bad will happen to them. This is their innocence. It is our duty as parents to be sure they understand the severity of this problem and that they can be educated and aware without scaring them. It can be done. It must be done! After all it's your child's life we are talking about here!

Parents please don't let your young children walk to and from school alone! I see it every day in my own neighborhood and it truly worries me. Children as young as 5 years old walking blocks and blocks to and from school alone. By doing so you have just made your child the perfect target for becoming a victim! If you cannot take them to and from school each day yourself make arrangements with a friend, relative or neighbor. There is always a solution if you just take the time to find one. Set up a car pool and if you don't have a car set it up like a car pool but take turns walking them with other parents in your area who can! It is your responsibility to your children!

Set up the same types of arrangements for playing in the park. Walk your children down the street to their friend's house to play. If it's nearby, simply take the time to watch them arrive safely and have them call you before they leave so that you can keep an eye on them, instead of letting them roam the streets alone. Know where your children are and who they are with at all times!

The most important thing we can say to parents these days, is that the world is not the same as it was when we were growing up. We all have to be careful these days. Violence is more prevalent. The risks are much greater. Make the time to be sure your child is safe. Make your children's safety and overall well being a priority!

Below you will find some very important information on how to educate your child. Please take the time to read it. I also urge you to keep in mind the things above that are not listed here. Used together, these can all make the difference in keeping your child from becoming the next victim of such a horrific crime.

What Can You Do To Protect Your Children From Child Predators?

Public awareness is being raised concerning the national tragedy of missing children. Not all missing children are runaways; some children just seem to vanish without a trace.

We cannot always be with our children, so we must trust their intelligence and good judgment. We can teach our children to be alert to the world by giving them the knowledge to cope with the times they may find themselves in danger.

1. Parents can help protect their children by teaching them awareness of dangerous people and the lures used to entice children. Children should be AWARE not AFRAID of the dangers! Through education, perhaps we can prevent a child's disappearance.

2. Set aside time to talk to your children about dangerous people and strangers. Gear the talk to your children's level of understanding. Be straightforward, without frightening a sensitive child.

3. Keep current files on your children. Include a recent photo(update it at least four times a year for children under two, at least twice a year other wise.), physical description, extra activities, and friend's names, addresses and phone numbers. Obtain a set of foot print or finger prints through local law enforcement or qualified professionals. Maintain dental or medical records.

4. Abductors usually select a child they think will be an easy target. They look for children who walk to school alone, take shortcuts, or seem to be alienated from other children. Quite often they watch playgrounds and observe children's play habits.

5. Be cautious when you select someone to care for your children. Meet them and check their references. If your children must be left alone, explain the proper way to answer the telephone and the door.

6. Teach your children their full name and yours, phone number with area code, and address with zip code. They should know how to make local and long distance calls; use a pay phone; call home and law enforcement departments; and dial "0" for the operator or 911 in an emergency.

7. Mentally note the clothes your children wear EVERYDAY! Avoid putting names visibly on clothing or belongings. Know where your children are at all times. Never leave them unattended in a public place, car or store. Children should play in supervised areas only.

8. Be sure your children know what to do if you are separated while shopping. They should not look for you; they should go to the nearest clerk and ask for help!

9. Explain who a stranger is. Children should never enter a stranger's home, get into their car, or take gifts from them. Explain when the child has the right to say NO to an adult. Be aware of anyone who pays an unusual amount of attention to your children. Listen to your children if they don't want to be left alone with someone. Ask them to tell you about anyone who asks them to keep a secret or any new adults they meet.

10. As a family, choose a family code word. Instruct your children to never go with anyone who does not know the code word. Stress that the word is not to be given to anyone. Change it frequently. Ask the school or day care center to notify you immediately if your children are absent. Inform them of people authorized to pick up your children. Have the same person every day if possible.

11. Encourage your children to use the buddy system. Advise them what to do if a stranger follows or approaches them. Get to know your neighbors and establish "safe homes" where children can go for help.

Child Predators on the Internet

While the computer age has opened a whole new world for our children to explore and learn from, the "information superhighway" also has a dark side we all need to be aware of. Just as they prey on land, Pedophiles lurk on the Internet waiting to lure innocent children into their web of deviance, looking for their next victim.

These deviates meet others who claim children for their victims, share stories, pictures and encourage each other along the way.

The tricks they use on the Internet are a little different. They can hide behind the screen. No one can tell if they are 12, 20, 40, or any age. They know how to relate to children and find it easy to communicate on that level. They present themselves in areas children frequent and pose as children. They get to know the child they are communicating with and pass themselves off as a friend. Often, they will use smoking cigarettes, using drugs, talking about sex, or some activity they should not be involved with as an incitement to lure the child to meet them without anyone knowing.

The trap is then laid. An adult will lure the child out to meet with them. Thinking it's another child, they set off to meet their friend. What happens next depends on the plan of the predator. For some, this would be enough. The fact that they won their trust enough to get them to meet them may be all the ground rules they need to molest the child. Some may attempt a closer relationship by playing the con a little longer.

The key to all of this, is that child predators are cons. Their goals are as varied as their egos. The limits for one may just be the beginning point for another. There is no way to predict how any given predator will react. Their personalities differ. Their needs are not the same in many ways. There is only one thing they have completely in common. That is the fact that they find their thrill in luring a child into their well concocted plan.

If you own a home computer please advise children of any age of the following rules, which may reduce your child's risk of exploitation:

1. NEVER give out any personal information such as your last name, address, telephone number, your parents first or last names, their work phone numbers, name of their employer's or business names, the name or location of your school. Make them understand they must always ask you and get your permission first!

2. NEVER to send anyone your photograph or any other items via the Internet without obtaining your parent's permission even if someone insists you will not get into trouble. If someone repeatedly asks for your photo please be sure to alert your parents immediately.

3. NEVER respond to any messages that make you feel uncomfortable! Don't allow someone to say mean or naughty things to you, they have no right to do so! If you do come across someone doing this please get your parents right away so that they can get the person's user ID and possibly their IP address so that they may contact the on-line service.

4. NEVER agree to get together or meet with anyone you meet on-line. If someone asks you to meet with them first discuss it with your parents. If your parents agree to the meeting, be sure they come along and that you meet in a very public place such as a mall or something.

The more you know, the more you can teach your children to be aware of the world around them. There is so much good in it. They should be able to enjoy it, safely.



Sex-Offender Laws

History
Prior to 1994 only five states required convicted sex offenders to register their addresses with local law enforcement. As recognition of the severity of this problem grew, Congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Act, 42 U.S.C. §§14071, et seq. (“Wetterling Act”). This requires state implementation of a sex-offender registration program or a 10 percent forfeiture of federal funds for state and local law enforcement under the Byrne Grant Program of the U.S. Department of Justice. Today, all fifty states have sex offender registries.

The realization registration alone was not enough came after the tragic murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka by a released sex offender living on her street. The public outcry created a call for programs to provide the public with information regarding released sex offenders. In 1996 Congress passed a federal law mandating state community notification programs. Megan’s Law, section (e) of the Wetterling Act, requires all states to conduct community notification but does not set out specific forms and methods, other than requiring the creation of internet sites containing state sex-offender information. Beyond that requirement, states are given broad discretion in creating their own policies.

The Challenge
There are currently 566,782 registered sex offenders in the United States. Sex offenders pose an enormous challenge for policy makers: they evoke unparalleled fear among constituents; their offenses are associated with a great risk of psychological harm; and most of their victims are children and youth. As policy makers address the issue of sex offenders, they are confronted with some basic realities

* Most sex offenders are not in prison, and those who are tend to serve limited sentences
* Most sex offenders are largely unknown to people in the community
* Sex offenders have a high risk of re-offending
* While community supervision and oversight is widely recognized as essential, the system for providing such supervision is overwhelmed

Loopholes in Current State Programs
The increased mobility of our society has led to “lost” sex offenders, those who fail to comply with registration duties yet remain undetected due to law enforcement’s inability to track their whereabouts. A conservative estimate of the number of “lost” sex offenders is at least 100,000 nationwide. The wide disparity among the state programs in both registration and notification procedures permits sex offenders to “forum-shop,” research which states have the least stringent laws, in order to live in communities with relative anonymity.

Recommendations

* There is a clear need for more consistency and uniformity among state programs for sex offender registration and community notification.
* There should be more funding to assist states in maintaining and improving these programs.
* New technology should be developed for tracking offenders and improving communication between and among various agencies (law enforcement, corrections, courts and probation).


List of State Sex-offender Registry Web Sites
U.S. Department of Justice National Sex Offender Public Registry
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/states.htm
http://www.ice.gov/graphics/predator/sexoffenders.htm

Anonymous said...

Monsey man accused of having sex with boys
By STEVE LIEBERMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS



(Original publication: October 19, 2006)



MONSEY - A 21-year-old man has been charged with having oral sex with two 14-year-old boys inside a car, Ramapo police said yesterday.

A Ramapo officer found Tuvya Rokach in a car with the two boys at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

The car was parked at the closed-down Rockland Drive-In on Route 59 in Monsey.

"A Ramapo police officer on patrol observed suspicious activity in the car," Detective Sgt. John Lynch said.

The two boys live in Monsey and Rokach was staying in the community.

Police charged Rokach with second-degree criminal sexual act, a felony, and misdemeanor counts of third-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

Lynch said Rokach gave arresting officers addresses in Ramapo, Brooklyn and Toronto, Canada.

Rokach also is being investigated by police in Toronto, apparently where he had lived before coming to Monsey, police said.

Police don't know when Rokach moved to Rockland.

Lynch said detectives also were working with federal immigration officials to determine Rokach's legal status in the United States.

"We believe he's a citizen of Canada," Lynch said. "We're trying to verify that."

Rokach was arraigned on the charges yesterday afternoon by Ramapo Justice Rhoda Schoenberger.

She ordered Rokach held in the county jail on $150,000 bail. He has not entered a plea to the charges.

Rokach is scheduled to return to Justice Court on Monday, pending an indictment by a grand jury.

He has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

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It is unfortunate that it has come to this. It is a big darn shame it has come to this. It is very hurtful that it has come to this. But yet, IT HAS COME TO THIS. It has come at the price of a GREAT CHILUL HASHEM. It has come to Hashem having to allow his holy name to be DESECRATED so that his CHILDREN remain SAFE. Shame on all those responsible for enabling and permitting Hashem's name to be desecrated! When you save children you save the future. You save the future you save generations. You save generations you save lives. You save lives you have saved the world!!!!!!!