BROOKLYN, NY (PIX11)—
The family of a Brooklyn man being treated for drug
addiction in California traces his problems back to sexual abuse by a
yeshiva teacher, when he was just 9 years old.
"I do recall the rabbi being over here, trying to hush up my dad," Yosef
Werner--the abuse survivor's brother--told PIX 11 Friday.20 years ago, Daniel "Benji" Werner came home from the Yeshiva of Brooklyn one day and started confiding in his mother at their Midwood home. "He told me the rabbi was touching him," Yehudis Werner told PIX. "And I said, 'What??!!"
Benji Werner told his mother the teacher would call him up to the front of the class, take the boy behind the desk, place Benji on his lap, and then put his hands in the boy's pants and molest him.
Mrs. Werner said she called her husband, Aaron, and he started contacting other parents from Benji's class. She told PIX several parents had heard the same thing from their children. Soon after, she said the family received calls from religious leaders. "They called up my husband and said 'if you continue to call parents, we'll make your name mud.'"
Yehudis Werner told PIX that because the family with eight children had recently emigrated to Brooklyn from Israel, they didn't want to rock the boat back then by going to police.
The Werner family decided to talk to PIX 11 now, because of recent publicity surrounding the District Attorney's office and how it's handled sexual abuse cases in the Orthodox Jewish community. The Kings Country District Attorney, Charles Hynes, told reporters this week he's ready to put handcuffs on any religious leader who threatens witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.
Back in 1992, Benji Werner's parents took him out of the yeshiva and transferred him to a school on the lower East Side of Manhattan. But within a couple of years, Yosef Werner recalls his kid brother was getting into trouble, at the age of 11. "I know he was popping Ecstasy pills at a very early stage," Yosef Werner told PIX.
From rehab in California, Benji Werner told PIX 11 by phone Friday, "I basically isolated myself. I was depressed. After two years in my new school, one of the kids introduced me to marijuana. I smoked it and it would deaden my feelings." Werner acknowledged he later took Ecstasy and acid.
Through tears, Benji Werner's mother told PIX, "My only regret? I wish I got him counseling at the time." She told PIX her son tells her not to feel so badly. "He said, 'At least you did better than other parents. You put me in a new school.'" Yehudis Werner said she recently told her son, "Benji, thank you for confiding in me."
When PIX 11 contacted Yeshiva of Brooklyn Friday, a man who answered the phone said he was the principal. When I identified myself and asked if Benji's rabbi was still working at the yeshiva, the man told me, "No, he is no longer here." When I asked why, he responded, "None of your business. This is a private school."
Six years ago, Benji Werner and his brother paid a visit to the Kings County District Attorney's office. But Benji Werner was already 24 years old, so too much time had passed; under state law, there could be no prosecution, because of the statute of limitations.
Yosef Werner, a teacher, said he was working with a liason in the Orthodox Jewish community to get an apology from Benji's old teacher. But it never happened. "I did get a bottle of Chivas Regal from this individual who was trying to bribe me to shut my mouth up," Werner said.
Werner's father, Aaron, is dead now, and Yosef Werner said Friday, "I want people to see this story, because my father wanted this to come out in the 1990's."
When PIX 11 asked Benji Werner if he will get over his trauma, he replied, "Yes, I will, because I'm talking about it now. For years, I didn't talk."
Benji Werner expects to be in rehab for at least another, three months.
Watch video and read article: http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-new-york-orthodox-sex-abuse-case,0,5559513.story
Failed Messiah: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/06/molested-in-the-yeshiva-of-brooklyn-789.html#comments
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10 comments:
yah i saw the piece on channel 11 news, and have heard of the case before. in fact, i've heard of several other cases in which r'nussbaum is the molester. he needs to be exposed and it is shameful to the orthodox community that he has not been exposed and imprisoned for his crimes of perversion.
This molester ("Rabbi" Nussbaum) still lives in Midwood (1854 East 47th St), and I don't know how he can show his face to anyone knowing that so many in the community know of his crimes/ perversions against little innocent children.
How could he do things to innocent children, who then have horrible struggles in the future because of him? Some of them have even actually committed suicide because of the psychological torment. Others have attempted it, while others have pondered it. Molestation ruins lives!
The statute of limitations needs to be changed. So many are so scared/ashamed to admit when they are molested as kids, and then finally when they are strong enough emotionally as adults to come out and admit their victimization, the law: the statue of limitations protects the molester.
It's so disgusting how this part of the law does not protect our young and innocent. There needs to be something in the law that allows victims of molestation to be protected when they are young, and to allow them to legally come after their perpetrator in the future. The perpetrators/ molestors should not be able to hide behind "the law."
It's a big shame that molesters are being protected by the law, while molestees: little, innocent children, are just turned away and left alone to deal with this tormenting issue on their own.
Molesters cannot be protected by our laws!!! It cannot be in our "just" country! This is something that should not and cannot be allowed!
it's disgusting that molesters are being protected by our american laws! it's an outrage!
who is protecting our innocent children who are molested? not the law... right?
we know what kind of torment they go through in their minds because of molesters.
why is there no justice for our innocent children who are targeted by perverted men of religious status? men who are protected by our judicial system!
It is highly disturbing and unfair how the statute of limitations give a 'free get out of jail card' to perverts preying on kids.
The hope is to legislate and correct this measure that actually punishes the victims all over again,and has the pedophiles/enablers thumbing their noses in jest at those they victimized/traumatized - often crossing paths with them for years after the assaults!
What is wrong with finagling with 9 year old boys. Some warmth to the kinderlach never hurts them.
I don't know why someone is reminding UOJ le'noygeah to what i was doing with my house on 47th street. There's a public school and yeshiva boys on my entire block.And I'm happy doing favors for boys in my basement if they cant afford to pay for the shatnez checking.
(posted on Unorthodox Jew blog)
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.ca/2006/12/rabbi-nussbaum-from-yeshiva-of.html
RABBI NUSSBAUM FROM YESHIVA OF BROOKLYN GOING JUDGMENT PROOF?
A reader writes:
Rabbi Nussbaum appears to have made some transaction involving the property he owns (along with his wife and one other) at 1854 47th st, Brooklyn. NY 11204 on 6/21/06. The documents can be found on acris, the new york city register's web site. Because I'm not a lawyer, the transaction doesn't really make sense to me. I wonder if he is protecting assets because of the possible lawsuits.
The timing seems right. Maybe the NYC Marshall or Sheriff could seize his ruler or that brown 1970's Buick with the matching pinstriped suit.
My recollection is that his fondling usually occurred
in front of the whole class when you were called up to read.
That was his usual method of operation. I remember
devising ways with a few fellow classmates on how to
avoid his wandering hand in our pants when were called up.
We would be tightening our belt, bring up our own
chumash so we could stand at arms length..,etc.
He also used to put his arm around your leg to make sure you couldn't get away.
I spoke with a former classmate, who as I write,
is searching for the diary he kept for that year and other years at YOB.
Keep up the good work and whatever methods are
required to get these people away from children.
Sincerely,
It is well known Nussbaum is a sexual sadist who derives pleasure in tormenting little innocent children, and that The Mandel brothers (jack & shlomo) are MANIACAL BEASTS!!!!!!!!!!!
They are at the minimum the equivalency of Catholic priests who turned a blind eye to their 'own' with the never ending child-sex abuse scandals.
Benji Werner was the right age for sex according to the Talmud:
“All agree that the (sexual) connection of a boy aged nine years and a day is a real connection; whilst that of one less than eight years is not." Sanhedrin 69b
If Benji was older than 9 then the rabbi is in trouble.
"When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than this (three years and a day) it is as if one put the finger into the eye." The footnote says that as “tears come to the eye again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl under three years.” 11 Kethuboth 11b.
How about that?
Every Jewish girl must have lost her virginity hundreds of times, before she reaches 18.
Maybe werner could explain how such a thing could happen?
I learned in YOB through 6th grade and we never had to come to the front of the class to read.
Also if any such thing happened the whole class would make a big outroar about it.
Even in third grade when some of my classmates didn't like the way a teacher acted, they made fun of him in public. My classmates also spoke up when the menahel shamed kids by putting them on the classroom table and spanking them on their rear.
Now if a Rebbe would even once touch a kid on his private parts, the whole school would know that this Rebbe is a parutz. We knew of beatings Rebbis and english teachers gave, but we never heard of this.
This story sounds very weird that a kid wouldn't tell his Rebbe to get his hands out of his pants. At 10 I didn't hesitate to tell R' Yaacov Mandel not to hit me, and to defend myself, for being smacked across my face numerous times for saying something that hurt a classmates feelings.
Yeshiva of brooklyn is a hellhole of biggest proportions. Send your kids there at your own risk, if you are that stupid! Not only was physical abuse rampant & just taken for granted, but so was sexual molestation. Why would a boy of 9 be excepted to be an adult and speak back to the 'rabbi' molesting him. Not when you were brought up to respect and follow in their 'holy' footsteps, exemplifying what it means to be a 'Jew.' Physical abuse (not little slaps on the wrist) was as common as the sunset. Not to mention an innocent boy of 9 or 10 more ready to openly speak of physical beatings, but sexual abuse?? Not that fast? But young Benji was smart enough to realize sexual abuse in the terms of a rabbi sticking his hand in his underwear and fondling his penis every chance he got, the term which a kid that young would not know exactly how to express themselves except to feel shameful, but know what their abuser did was VERY WRONG!, especially in the early 1990's, would be too inexperienced and naive to even suggest illegality and immorality!!!!!!!! Nussbaum just couldn't keep his hands to himself! weather it was cracking rulers on your palms or wrist, or seductivly getting a slapstick in thighs and genitalia area, count on Nussbaum to do just that, A sicko! Sexual sadist! What else to say?? Sad :/
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