Rabbi Baruch Lebovits, 59, Sentenced 32 Years For Sexually Abusing Teen

  
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 http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-sex-abuse-32-years-max,0,4358743.story

BOROUGH PARK, N.Y. (WPIX) - Rabbi Baruch Lebovits, 59, the wealthy owner of a travel agency in Borough Park, Brooklyn, was hit Monday with a lengthy prison term for sexually abusing a then-16-year-old boy from his neighborhood.

Lebovits, a father of seven children and grandfather to 24, had long been the subject of talk in his community, but no action was ever taken against him, until three alleged victims came forward a couple of years ago.

Judge Patricia DiMango, of Brooklyn Supreme Court, sentenced Lebovits to a maximum term of 10 2/3 to 32 years. The victim in this first case told the jury that Lebovits performed oral sex on him in the rabbi's silver Toyota, on eight occasions between May 2004 and February 2005. The victim, now 22, testified he turned to drugs and alcohol after the abuse. The defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, argued the allegations were made up, as part of an extortion attempt, because Lebovits' son is a multi-millionaire.

In a surprise courtroom revelation, the judge read portions of Lebovits' probation report, where the rabbi confided to authorities that he himself was a victim of sexual abuse, when he was a boy. Lebovits said he was victimized the first time by an uncle in London, when he was just 11-years-old. He said a teenager abused him again, a year later, when he was 12.

Lebovits' victim, who admitted he stole money from poor boxes in the synagogue to feed his drug habit, read a statement to the judge before sentencing.

"Some people are telling me I'll regret going to the police. I feel every day Baruch Lebovits is in jail is a day kids in our community are safe," he said.

The victim's father then read his own statement to Judge DiMango, swaying back and forth at the table like he was saying daily prayers in his Orthodox Jewish faith:

"I ask you Mordechai Lebovits--where is your soul? You destroyed these children," said the victim's father,

Later, outside of court, the man revealed to PIX 11 News how community members from the synagogue lashed out against the family after they went public with the abuse complaints.

"Somebody almost kicked me .. they threw me out of the synagogue," he said.

Defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, took note that Lebovits worked for many years as a kindergarten teacher in Brooklyn and there was never one word of complaint from parents. He pointed to more than 100 letters of support for the rabbi, written by his family and other community members.

"In my religion, you would call the life Baruch Lebovits lived a saint -- this is a non-violent crime. Keep in mind, this is his first contact with the system," said Aidala.

But Judge DiMango was not swayed, although she noted, "Sex abuse often leads to sex abuse." Before imposing the maximum sentence, she said, "Abusing and harming children will not be tolerated."

A group of young men who say they are survivors of sexual abuse by teachers and counselors turned up in court to support the victim.

The defense plans to appeal the harsh sentence, claiming Lebovits is being punished, because he turned down a "plea bargain" offer before trial that would have carried a 1 1/3 to 4 year maximum penalty. Now the rabbi is looking at 32 years. 
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http://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/speech-by-father-of-lebovits-victim-to-sentencing-judge/

Speech By Father of Lebovits Victim to Sentencing Judge

by Yerachmiel Lopin on 04/12/2010

Below is the prepared text that the father of the victim shared with me yesterday and delivered to the judge in Brooklyn a few minutes ago. I will announce sentencing as soon it happens. The text has has been edited to remove names and other identifying information.

I would like to thank the judge, The Honorable Patricia M. Di Mango, for giving me the opportunity to speak at the sentencing of Baruch Mordechai Lebovits.
King David wrote: ”I thank G-d with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright” (Psalms 111:1). There is no more righteous place than where justice is done and executed. The prophet Isaiah said, “Zion should be redeemed through justice. I would like to thank the Honorable Justice Di Mango for conducting the trial with truth and dignity. I have to admit that I had my doubts about the outcome, but I know that if you have truth on your side justice will prevail. As Shakespeare said:  “The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is”.
I want to thank Ms. Gregory and her staff and the DA’s office for endless hard work and sleepless nights to bring this case to trial regardless of the dark clouds, She directed those clouds at Mr. Lebovits so the sun should shine again on my son. It is said that in every dark place there is a spark of light that is called hope.
I thank Detective Steve for his tireless work and the fact the he was always available to us 24/7. I also want to thank Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg and the father of another victim. Without you I would not be here today. You were like Pinchus in the Bible.
I want to thank my wonderful parents and family who stood fast in the biggest crises facing them in and out of the community for giving our son emotional support, a hug, a laughter and sometimes, a tear. You kids are all standing tall as victory marches on and history was made.
It is said that you leave the best for the last. And so my beloved son, my heart is always with you. We are one soul in two bodies bonded forever. I am very proud of you as are all your friends, family and all those who took part in this case. You had the courage to bring to the authorities that evil man, who is a rabbi and a prominent businessman with many connections to top leaders in the community. You refused to be bribed to drop the case. You were subjected to mud slinging and character assassination in front of the entire community as you testified in the witness chair. But you persevered because you had one thing on your side and that is the truth.
The holy book The Zohar states that “Truth stands on its own feet and lies do not stand.” And so the jury gave it’s verdict siding with the truth.
My son, with your courage to come forward you made history, helping to put away this evil man.  You made the community safer for other children. Martin Luther King JR said “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.”
I want to look this evil a man in his eyes. What this man did is not some tale or script in a horror movie. It is a real horror story of a man who lived in our community, was trusted by the children and the people. He went on to ruin so many innocent lives just to serve his own selfish sick pleasures. I ask you Mordechai Lebovits, where is your soul? After you had your sick fun you discarded these innocent children like trash. You wished to see them completely destroyed so they would not be able to testify against you. You never showed or had any remorse. You tried to destroy our son and his testimony by bringing in a rabbi, Berrel Ashkenazi, who himself is a alleged child molester, to testify on your behalf. But you just dug a deeper hole for yourself. As King David wrote “He who dug a pit has fallen into the ditch which he made. (Psalms 7:16).
But you cannot escape from the hands of G-D. Our son pulled himself out of the pit that you dug for him. He will go on with his life and G-D will give him strength and success while you will rot in a pit. .
Now, let me turn my attention and address the Lebovits family, friends and the so-called rabbis. You are not innocent either. You share the same guilt that Mordechai Lebovits does. You are just as guilty as he is because you all knew who he was, what he was doing and how he was destroying so many innocent children for years. You all came to support him while smirking and laughing at our son as he bravely testified. Our great Sages said that the one who sees someone committing evil and is silent is just as guilty as the evil perpetrator and gets the same punishment from G-D as the evildoer. There were rabbis who called me form Israel and ask me not to persecute him and just let him off the hook for his family’s sake. I told them that there is nothing in the Bible or the Talmud that tells us that justice should not be served for the sake of the family of the criminal. I ask those who pleaded mercy for this man” Did Mordechai Lebovits ever have mercy on the children he molested? Did he ever ask for their forgiveness for ruining their lives?
I would like to give you a summary of a quote from the Chief Rabbi Strenbuch of the Ultra Orthodox Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem (II:627). “It is not only allowed to bring the criminal to the authorities but it is a command to hand over such a person to the authorities. By handing him to the authorities you will eliminate desecration of G-D. There is no greater desecration of G-D than allowing a criminal like this to escape justice.”
I have a message for all those children molested by this or any other evil man and to their families.  It took a long time for this man to be brought to justice, but as a Russian poet once wrote “Justice is like a train that always arrives late”. It is better late than never. Don’t be afraid to bring a perpetrator to justice.
In conclusion, I would like to ask the Honorable Justice Patricia M. Di Mango to impose the maximum sentence for the crimes committed by Mordechai Lebovits as he inflicted maximum suffering on his innocent victims with no remorse.
Thank you very much Justice Di Mango. May G-D bless you and G-D bless America!

Indifference Is The Essence Of Inhumanity.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9322

The chutzpah of the Catholic Church

By Asher Lipner
Posted Friday, 21 August 2009


In the State of New York the Catholic Church has been fighting against the passage of the Child Victims Act of Assemblywoman Margaret Markey “with all their hearts, with all their souls and with all their might”. The proposed legislation extends the statute of limitations on sex crimes against children and opens a one-year window for adult victims to sue their childhood perpetrators with no statute of limitation at all. Aside from granting the victims the opportunity to receive justice and some level of compensation for their suffering, similar window legislation has proven to be the best way to help identify scores of sexual predators that were unknown to law enforcement in both California and Delaware.

The Church has postulated a conspiracy theory that sees the sole purpose of allowing adult survivors of child sexual abuse to sue their molesters as a way for enemies of the Church to do it harm.

The Church should be ashamed of itself after the publicly humiliating exposure of its tolerance of perverted behaviour by pedophile priests, and its cynical cover up and intimidation of victims it has perpetrated on a system-wide level. It truly gives a new definition to the word “Chutzpah”, for the Catholic Church to speak out in any but a humble and apologetic tone.

A grand jury in Long Island, New York, for example charged the Archdiocese there of stalling victims of abuse from pressing charges until the statute of limitations was up, so that the Church would not have to answer for the molestation perpetrated by their priests. In Los Angeles, Archbishop Mahony is being investigated by the FBI for the crime of placing priests who were known to have molested children in the past in positions of authority over children without notifying the children’s parents.

Aside from the audacity of an organisation claiming to speak for God placing their financial concerns over the welfare of victims, the tactics used in defending their “assets” by the Church have been extremely “un-Christian”. In Brooklyn, Bishop Nicholas Dimarzio has, in a Machiavellian threat, warned legislators that if the Child Victims Act passes, he will shut down churches in the precincts of those who voted against it.

Ironically, given the Church’s record of aiding and abetting pedophile priests, legislators who care for the safety of the children in their precinct would do well to view this outcome as a positive promise and not as an unwanted threat.

Child sexual abuse, however, knows no religion and is certainly not a plague that is limited to the Catholic Church, and therefore the Church is hurting children of all faiths when they use their considerable political power in New York to deny justice to survivors who have been abused. While the bill was in fact never intended originally by anyone to be “anti-Catholic”, once the Catholic Church has shamefully turned anti-children, they have made it so, because they have once again become actively pro-molesters and the bill is most definitely anti-molesters.

As a Jew, I cannot say I am totally shocked at the lack of concern by representatives of the Catholic Church over the past several decades (and indeed centuries) about the brutalising of innocent children by adults in power.

After all, this is a religious institution that only 60 years ago turned a blind eye to the wanton murder of one million innocent Jewish children in countries that were mostly dominated by practitioners of the Catholic religion.

Although the last Pope did “apologise” to Jewish survivors (the children are not with us to have heard it), not so much has really changed in the Church's sense of morality or sensitivity for child victims. This was recently on display by Pope Benedict’s appointing as a bishop a priest who openly denies that the Holocaust even happened and that Jewish children were gassed to death, and by his pursuing “sainthood” for Pope Pius XII, labeled by historians as “Hitler’s Pope”.

For those children who survived the death camps to have the Church once again treat their feelings like so much political nuisance, reminds them of how little they can trust their Catholic “friends” at a time of need.

But adding insult to injury, in New York, home to many Jewish children as well as Catholic, the Church now seeks to deny all children the right to their day in court when they suffer their own private Holocaust-like trauma of rape, sodomy and sexual molestation. It has been shown repeatedly by psychologists that for many victims of childhood sexual trauma, it often takes growing up into adulthood to even remember, yet alone understand the nature of the harm inflicted on them. Sometimes symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are only manifested once the victim has children of his or her own. And even for those who have suffered from symptoms for years and have had their lives forever damaged, many need years of professional help to regain the emotional strength it takes to confront their victimisers.

To withhold access to restitution for their medical treatment as well as for emotional pain and suffering, is to tell victims of all faiths and ethnicities that their pain is not our concern and their cries will continue to fall on deaf ears. All this from the "religion of love". Apparently the Church, once again, demands from its victims that they "turn the other cheek", while the Church itself aggressively continues to protect itself from being exposed for the destruction of lives that it has caused.

Unfortunately, as a Jew, I am also ashamed at witnessing history repeating itself with the neglectful behaviour of many of my own people. While almost all mainstream Orthodox Jewish groups such as the Rabbinical Council of America, The Rabbinical Alliance of America, The Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, the Orthodox Union, and Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, and our two Orthodox Assemblymen Dov Hikind and Speaker Sheldon Silver have joined Protestant groups, Catholic victims advocacy groups such as the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests and Voices of the Faithful, and other non-denominational child advocate groups in lobbying for the Markey bill, our brothers and sisters of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism have been deafeningly silent about the spiritual holocaust for children in New York, much as they were during the Holocaust of Jews in Europe. While these branches of Judaism have impressive records in America of social activism, when it comes to standing up for victims of abuse their voices have not been heard.

To be clear, in traditional Torah Judaism, based on halachic law, there is no legal precedent for statutes of limitations on crimes of violence or harming another, neither in civil nor in criminal law. While not speaking directly to the issue of time constraints on claims of damages, one of the most famous dictums in the tort laws of the Talmud states "Adam Muad Le'olam". A person is always responsible (for the damage he/she does). Furthermore, every Jewish person has a biblical obligation to speak out for children’s safety: “Thou shall not stand by idly thy neighbour’s blood.”

Legislators of all religious backgrounds would be wise remember that one out of five or your constituents has been the victim of sexual abuse before the age of 18, although many have not been vocal about it. When facing your own conscience and being tempted to play politics with the lives of innocent children, remember that NO God, not the God believed in by Jews, Christians or Muslims, (and not even the God that atheists reject), could possibly countenance the violation of innocent children. We must all come together in support of our children and pray that the One Merciful God, will in His infinite wisdom, truth and justice, grant our legislature the common sense and the courage needed to enact both the Child Victims Act and other legislation to protect the children He has entrusted to us.



Rabbi Dr Asher Lipner, PhD is an ordained Orthodox Rabbi with a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He is the Vice President of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author only, and do not necessarily reflect the position of any organisation.

2B or not 2B a Frummie Fraud - The Beards Are a Crying Shame!!!

Sexual Abuse Legislation: A Proposed Strategy For Reform

Such a compromise, to please pedophiles and their masters, is bad policy

The compromise supported by the 5 Towns Jewish Times and others is nothing more than a sham to discourage and prevent victims from ever seeking civil justice

The Zalkin Law Firm Explains Why a Compromise with Institutions that Harbored Pedophiles is Bad Policy

Sexual Abuse Attorney Irwin Zalkin explains why a compromise with the institutions that harbored pedophiles is bad policy.

New York, New York (PRWEB) May 6, 2009 -- Recently, the New York Assembly has begun to consider whether it should limit the amount of money that a jury can award to remedy the damage endured by a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. That proposal was supported in a recent article in 5 Towns Jewish Times, entitled "Sexual Abuse Legislation: A Proposed Strategy For Reform," by David Mandel. Under the proposed scheme, regardless of the facts in a case and the financial cost to the survivor of taking on well funded and insured religious corporations at trial, the most that can be recovered is $500,000. The attorney representing the victim would be limited to a 10% fee. "Such a compromise, to please pedophiles and their masters, is bad policy," states Irwin Zalkin, an attorney helping survivors of childhood sexual abuse (http://www.zalkin.com) across the country. "The compromise supported by the 5 Towns Jewish Times and others is nothing more than a sham to discourage and prevent victims from ever seeking civil justice," said Zalkin.

As Zalkin explains, "The institutions protected by the compromise supported by Mandel and 5 Towns Jewish Times are those who have purposely engaged in acts which deceived whole communities regarding the safety of children left in their care."

"The offending institutions have insurance and their own substantial resources to hire the biggest most expensive law firms to put on million dollar defenses. The survivor, of course, has none of these resources," states Zalkin. He further explains that: "For survivors their only hope of equaling the playing field is to hire a lawyer on a contingency basis who gets nothing if there is no recovery. That lawyer has to spend thousands of hours of work and advance the thousands of dollars to hire a team of professionals including, investigators; forensic experts in psychiatry or psychology; and various disciplines of rehabilitation; experts regarding what were the best practices to follow when caring for children; and economists." "The compromise scheme would ensure that, at the most, a long suffering David must once again take the field against a well conditioned and equipped Goliath. At the end of the day the wounded child remains forever maimed," said Zalkin.

With offices in New York and San Diego, The Zalkin Law Firm is one of the premier sexual abuse and personal injury law firms in the country. The firm's lawyers have achieved groundbreaking results in numerous high-profile clergy abuse (http://www.nyclergyabuse.com) cases across the United States. Mr. Zalkin has negotiated over $200 million in settlements in Catholic clergy sex abuse (http://news.zalkin.com) cases.

Mr. Zalkin is available to speak to the media about clergy sexual abuse and the Child Victim's Act of New York (A2596). Please call Lisa Maynes (212-889-1300) to arrange interviews. To speak to Mr. Zalkin about legal representation, please call The Zalkin Law Firm (212-889-1300).

Contact Information Irwin Zalkin
The Zalkin Law Firm, P.C.
http://www.Zalkin.com
800-724-3235

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/05/prweb2390414.htm

The Lopez bill promotes and protects child predators

Showdown Over Bills On Sex-Abuse Statute

by Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week

The legislative effort to help victims of child sexual abuse in New York State got much more complicated this week as two competing bills have now been cleared to go to a vote on the Assembly floor.
The bills are sponsored by Margaret Markey (D-Queens) and Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) respectively, and have already set up a showdown, pitting survivors of abuse and their advocates — who support the Markey bill — against major Catholic and Jewish institutions, which are backing the Lopez version.
The Markey bill, which made it out of the Assembly Codes Committee earlier this month by a vote of 11-8, extends the civil and criminal statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse. More significantly, it creates a one-year window during which...

Rest of article ===> http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a15355/News/New_York.html
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Child sex abuse bill approved in Assembly

10:33 PM EDT, March 31, 2009

ALBANY - A bill extending the statute of limitations on lawsuits over future allegations of child sex abuse was approved Tuesday by an Assembly committee.

In an 18-1 vote, the Codes Committee sent the legislation sponsored by Assemb. Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) to the Assembly floor for a vote, which could occur in a few weeks.

The Lopez bill rivals another from Assemb. Margaret M. Markey (D-Maspeth) that also extends the statute of limitations but more controversially establishes a special one-year window for abuse victims to file suit in civil court regardless how long ago the assault occurred.

Many abuse claims against Catholic priests were dismissed because they were made after the current time limit, which is five years after the accuser turns 18.

The Markey bill passed the committee nearly two weeks ago in an 11-8 vote while the Lopez bill failed.

Lopez then amended it to make employers and other third parties liable and waive the 90-day notice of claim requirement for suits against government workers.

"My bill treats public and private schools the same," he said.

Markey contends that her legislation does so as well. It passed the Assembly three times previously, only to die in the then Republican-controlled State Senate.

Still, the Catholic Church and others back Lopez's bill over Markey's. Gov. David A. Paterson also supports Lopez's.

-- JAMES T. MADORE

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/04/01/2009-04-01_brooklyn_da_charles_hynes_presses_to_exp.html

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes presses to expose sex abuse in Jewish community

BY Simone Weichselbaum
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 1st 2009, 4:00 AM

The Brooklyn district attorney's office is planning a new crackdown on sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where victims have hid their shame for decades.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes will announce Project Kol Tzedek - Hebrew for "Voice of Justice" - on Wednesday.

The first-ever team of prosecutors, counselors, religious leaders and Jewish social agencies will work to encourage young victims to name their attackers.

Sexual abuse in the city's Hasidic enclaves has gone largely unreported. Victims say they fear the shame of the attack and condemnation for revealing secrets to secular authorities.

But the culture has begun to change, officials said.

"Over the last several months, there has been a lot of articles in the newspaper," said Sex Crimes Bureau Chief Rhonnie Jaus.

"It has helped people in the community come forward, and we are starting to see more cases."

Since October, the Daily News has reported on five cases of men in Hasidic neighborhoods charged with sexually abusing children, ranging in age from 7 to 15.

The DA's office now has 19 cases involving accused molesters from Borough Park, Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Flatbush, officials said.

"This is the highest amount that I have ever seen," Jaus said.

Under Project Kol Tzedek, prosecutors will visit yeshivas and synagogues, and the DA will open a hotline and host meetings with victims interested in coming forward.

Organizers have lined up major partners, including the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, and Tikvah at Ohel.

Despite the progress, some participants asked not to be identified, afraid of being shunned for working with authorities.

"The community as a whole doesn't deal well with the severity of this problem," said one agency executive who is quietly working with the DA's office. "In order for victims to feel comfortable, we feel we should remain under the radar."

simonew@nydailynews.com

Hikind backpedals: Insists confrontational approach will turn Orthodox leaders against him

http://www.forward.com/articles/104261/

Hikind Retreating On Tough Tactics Against Molesters

By Rebecca Dube

Published March 25, 2009, issue of April 03, 2009.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, a leading voice in the fight to end child sexual abuse in Orthodox communities, is backing down from some of his previous claims and backing away from one of his most confrontational stands against an alleged pedophile.

In an interview with the Forward, Hikind dramatically scaled down a previously reported estimate of the number of abuse cases he knew about. He also said he could not keep a pledge to force a prominent yeshiva to remove an alleged pedophile from its staff.

Hikind said that he adjusted his tactics in order to be most effective. “Some people want me to yell and scream; they want me to burn the town down. I know how to do that, but I would lose the war immediately,” Hikind said in his office in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park.

After Hikind first publicized the problem of child sexual abuse in religious communities on his weekly radio show, it was widely reported that he heard from 1,000 victims of past and current abuse. That figure was attributed to Hikind by The New York Times, the New York Post, the Forward and other Jewish media.

But the real figure is about 100, Hikind told the Forward. He said the often repeated 1,000 number may have come from his speculation about the possible number of cases, given what he has heard from therapists who treat sexual abuse victims.

“I think what we were saying to everybody was, my God, the numbers must be astronomical,” Hikind said. “We never said a thousand. It keeps on getting repeated; anybody who talks to me, I actually tell them what the facts are.”

In the same interview, Hikind retreated from his previous position with regard to one of the Orthodox community’s most prominent alleged abusers — Rabbi Avrohom Reichman, formerly principal of, and currently a teacher at, the United Talmudical Academy, located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Reichman, the UTA and the Satmar Bungalow Colony summer camp are all named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by Joel Engelman, 23, who says that he was sexually abused by Reichman when he was 8 years old and that the school covered up the abuse.

Since Engelman went public with his allegations, both his family and Hikind have heard from others who say they were also victimized by Reichman. Last summer, following those revelations, Hikind vowed publicly that Reichman would not return to his teaching job in the fall of 2008.

But the accused rabbi is still teaching, and Hikind has not publicly pressed the issue further. The assemblyman told the Forward that his confrontation with Satmar leaders has been “a rather huge learning experience for me.”

Hikind stated that he has “been extremely clear publicly that I believe Rabbi Reichman has done some terrible things, and he should be out. We tried a lot of things behind the scenes to get [Satmar leaders and school officials] to remove this guy, but at the end of the day, for whatever reason — and I think it has something to do with his family being very prominent and having a lot of money — they were not going to remove this guy willingly. Period. End of story.”

The UTA did not return a phone message seeking a response to the allegations.

Hikind said that he could have raised more of a ruckus — for example, by protesting in front of the school — but he believed that such tactics would ultimately hurt the cause by turning other Orthodox leaders against him, which in turn would discourage other victims from speaking out.

“I made a decision that for me to go to war with Satmar, war meaning going into the streets and fighting them publicly and protesting outside the school… it would just destroy everything I’m trying to do,” Hikind said. “I felt without doubt that I would jeopardize everything else that I’m doing. I’ve had to walk on eggs.”

Pearl Engelman, Joel’s mother, has lashed out at Hikind in the past. But at a recent public forum on child sexual abuse, she seemed more sad than angry with Hikind — though still furious at her son’s alleged molester. “The school is stronger than Dov Hikind,” she said quietly. She said people often ask her why Reichman is still teaching children.

“Honestly, I have no answer, and it needs to be asked of the community and the school that is harboring him,” she said, adding that many UTA parents don’t even know about the abuse allegations, despite widespread publicity. “Our community is so secluded that people actually don’t know the news.”

While he has been trying to work cooperatively with religious leaders, Hikind said he is supplying the district attorney’s office with the names of accused molesters. He steadfastly refuses to disclose the names of victims or to publicly name accused pedophiles, but he said giving information about suspected molesters to the authorities is something different altogether.

“We have always worked with the DA,” Hikind said. “We don’t go out and publicize it, because that would destroy everything that I’m doing. But when we have situations where there’s a danger, we constantly give that information to the proper authorities.”

He would not disclose the number of names he has passed along to the district attorney, saying only that it was “many, many, many.” The Brooklyn district attorney’s office confirmed that Hikind has been sharing information, but the office declined to specify how many names the assemblyman has passed along. Overall, the D.A. now has 19 open cases involving allegations of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities in Brooklyn, said Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Advocates for abuse survivors say they understand that Hikind has to tread cautiously, and they appreciate his efforts.

“The fact that 100 victims came forward is significant. Think about how hard it is for a survivor to come forward in the face of the stigma in their communities. These people are really courageous,” said Lonnie Soury, who is a spokesman for Survivors for Justice, a group of Jewish sexual abuse survivors.

Elliot Pasik, the attorney handling Engelman’s lawsuit, confirmed that Hikind has been communicating with law enforcement.

“People need to recognize that the sex abuse problem has been brewing in the Orthodox community for 30 years, and an overnight solution is simply not feasible,” said Pasik, president of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, a group he founded last year. “I understand there are advocates clamoring for Mr. Hikind to publicly release the names of the alleged molesters, but we shouldn’t pursue vigilantism…. There is a validity to the path Mr. Hikind has pursued.”

In addition to civil lawsuits and criminal investigations, the third front in the fight against sex abuse is unfolding in Albany, where lawmakers are considering two bills that could permanently change the way religious communities deal with sexual abuse.

One would require background checks and fingerprinting for all private school employees — something that is already mandated for public schools. Sponsored by Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg and co-sponsored by Hikind, among others, the fingerprinting bill is awaiting a hearing in the Assembly education committee.

The second bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey and also co-sponsored by Hikind, would extend the statute of limitations by five years for criminal and civil cases of child sex abuse and would create a one-year window during which people could sue over old cases of sexual abuse. That bill, which would expose churches, religious schools and synagogues to possible litigation from abuses stretching back many years, may get a vote in the Assembly in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, survivors of sexual abuse say they will continue to speak out, and Hikind says he will continue advocating on their behalf — in his own way.

The Case of Rabbi Israel Weingarten

Rabbi Israel Weingarten listens as his daughter testifies during his federal trial for allegedly sexually abusing her starting when she was 9.

Rabbi Israel Weingarten cross examined his own daughter, whom he is accused of molesting, bringing the now 27-year-old to tears.

The ex-wife of a rabbi accused of molesting his daughter testified Thursday that she found them together in bed, and the teen revealed that she had been sexually abused.

Faige Weingarten recalled a Friday night about nine years ago when they were living in Belgium. She had slept in another room after arguing with her husband. She heard their infant crying and went to the bedroom, where she found Weingarten and their then-16-year-old daughter in bed.

"He said, 'Look, we are dressed,' but with the covers half down, I saw the middle of his body was naked," she said in Brooklyn Federal Court through a Yiddish translator.

A few days later, the daughter confided to her she had been sodomized, according to Faige Weingarten.

"She became disgusted for the rest of her life - he made her life disgusting," she said.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/05/2009-03-05_exwife_rabbi_israel_weingarten_halfnude_.html

Ex-wife: Rabbi Israel Weingarten half-nude with our daughter

BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, March 6th 2009, 8:53 AM

Jane Rosenberg

Rabbi Israel Weingarten cross-examined his daugther in court Tuesday.

The ex-wife of a rabbi accused of molesting his daughter testified Thursday that she found them together in bed, and the teen revealed that she had been sexually abused.

Before she began answering the prosecutor's questions, Faige Weingarten waived her spousal privilege and told the judge she wanted to testify against her ex-husband, Israel Weingarten, who prosecutors say began abusing the girl in 1990 when she was 9.

The case is being heard in Brooklyn because Weingarten is accused of passing through JFK Airport on the family's frequent travels to Belgium.

Faige Weingarten recalled a Friday night about nine years ago when they were living in Belgium. She had slept in another room after arguing with her husband. She heard their infant crying and went to the bedroom, where she found Weingarten and their then-16-year-old daughter in bed.

"He said, 'Look, we are dressed,' but with the covers half down, I saw the middle of his body was naked," she said in Brooklyn Federal Court through a Yiddish translator.

A few days later, the daughter confided to her she had been sodomized, according to Faige Weingarten.

"She became disgusted for the rest of her life - he made her life disgusting," she said.

The rabbi, who is representing himself in the case, complained to Judge John Gleeson that the translator misunderstood Faige's answer about his father's ailing health at the time of the alleged sexual abuse.

Gleeson was incredulous. "And you think that was the important part?" he shot back.

Earlier, the rabbi reduced his son to tears during a bizarre cross-examination about a suicide letter the boy had written.

"Is it possible it could get any worse than this?" said the defendant's legal adviser, Barry Rhodes.

jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

===============================================================
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--rabbiontrial0303mar03,0,5891609.story

Rabbi cross-examines daughter at NY sex trial

By TOM HAYS

Associated Press Writer

March 3, 2009

A woman who says her ultra-orthodox rabbi father molested her for much of her youth confronted him Tuesday under tense circumstances: as he cross-examined her at his own sex-abuse trial.

The defendant, Israel Weingarten, decided to be his own defense lawyer, setting up what a frustrated judge called an "awkward" and "fairly untenable" situation once he got the chance to directly question the government's star witness.

The woman, now 27, initially turned her head and wept when her father stepped up to a podium normally used by lawyers in a Brooklyn courtroom. But she slowly regained her composure, even lashing out at him when he questioned why she didn't come forward as a teenager with the shocking allegations.

"My feeling from your molesting me was utmost fear and blackmail and years of torture because you hit me, because I told my mother," she said. "Didn't I get hit enough?"

Weingarten, 59, a member of the Satmar community in Monsey, N.Y., was arrested and jailed without bail last year on charges he traveled outside the country to have sex with a minor. In a rambling opening statement, he said he had been falsely accused by a daughter who rebelled against a strict upbringing, and suggested that a neighbor was the actual abuser.

The daughter, one of eight children, told the FBI in 2003 that she was victimized since age 9 while living with her family in Hasidic communities in Belgium, and on trips to England and Israel. Prosecutors allege Weingarten sexually abused her, sometimes on a daily basis, and moved the family around to help conceal his crimes.

The accuser has since changed her name, but came forward and identified herself in open court as the daughter of the rabbi on Monday when she first took the witness stand to detail the accusations. She has appeared in court wearing an orange scarf and pants suit, and with her hair down _ a mainstream look she said her father had scorned.

She told jurors on Tuesday that once she grew up, she left the faith and hoped "to forget everything that happened to me," mindful that her father had warned her she "would never be able to prove it." But she went public with her charges at the urging of her mother, who was embroiled in a custody dispute with her father.

Weingarten, though assisted by two lawyers, struggled with his cross-examination. His questions meandered, and he often interrupted his daughter's answers by scolding her, which visibly angering U.S. District Judge Gleeson.

"I'm not sure where this cross is going, but I do know this: You are not going to lecture this witness," the judge told him.

The father peppered his daughter with questions about her admission that as a teen she briefly fell in love with an older man living next door in Belgium. Though she claimed she never had sex with him, she testified she was thrilled "that I finally got to be with another guy besides my father."

Her father reminded her that the neighbor was married with children, asking, "Didn't you feel that was wrong?"

"I didn't do much thinking," she responded. "I went with my heart."

The woman was to resume testifying on Wednesday.

===================================================================

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/02/2009-03-02_daughter_of_orthodox_rabbi_tells_court_o.html

Daughter of Orthodox rabbi tells court of father's sexual abuse

BY Scott Shifrel
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, March 3rd 2009, 12:03 AM

• Rabbi held on molest charges

The 27-year-old daughter of an Orthodox rabbi tearfully described in Brooklyn Federal Court the day 18 years ago when her father began sexually abusing her.

"I felt alone, scared, confused," the woman said as her gray-bearded father sat on the other side of the cavernous courtroom shaking his head.

She said her mother was heating chicken soup and the family was gathering in the kitchen when her father, Israel Weingarten, called the girl to a bedroom and assaulted her.

She said she felt "confusion, deafening silence" after the initial incident, which she says was followed by years of abuse.

Wearing a bright orange scarf and a pants suit, the woman said music, books and long dresses were forbidden in the home and the tight-knit community she has now left.

Weingarten, defending himself against charges that he brought his eldest daughter between homes in Belgium and New York for sex, wore the traditional black leggings and long jacket of a Satmar as he gave a rambling and bizarre opening statement.

"I'm not used to talk to people like you," he said in heavily accented English. He praised his daughter, but said she changed after an alleged affair with a neighbor.

And he repeatedly tried to show that religious Jews are not that different, once even parting his jacket and exposing leggings he said are similar to those worn by George Washington.

"You see these pants, it remind you of something?" he said holding his jacket open during what was surely one of the strangest sights seen in a federal courtroom. "I'm not that much different when it comes to our forefathers ... the only thing is, we didn't want to change."

The testimony continues Tuesday, to be followed by Weingarten's eldest son and his ex-wife.

sshifrel@nydailynews.com

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http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--rabbiontrial0302mar02,0,5432855.story

Newsday.com

Daughter accuses NY rabbi father of sex abuse

By TOM HAYS

Associated Press Writer

March 2, 2009

The daughter of an ultra-orthodox Jewish rabbi tearfully testified Monday how her father molested her for the first time at age 9, starting a pattern of abuse that prosecutors say lasted several years.

Afterward, "I felt alone, scared and confused," the woman, now 27, told a jury at her father's sex abuse trial.

The testimony was part of an unusual scene in federal court in Brooklyn, where the rabbi, Israel Weingarten, has chosen to represent himself and could end up cross-examining his own daughter.

In a rambling opening statement, the jailed Weingarten said he had been falsely accused by a daughter who rebelled against a strict upbringing, and suggested that a neighbor was the actual abuser. He also asked jurors not to judge him by his conservative black clothing, comparing it to that worn by George Washington.

"I'm not that different when it comes to our forefathers who were fighting for freedom," he said.

Weingarten, 59, a member of the Satmar community in upstate Monroe, N.Y., was arrested last year on charges he traveled outside the country to have sex with a minor. Prosecutors have said that if convicted, he faces up to 210 months in prison under sentencing guidelines.

The daughter, the second of eight children, first told the FBI in 2003 that she was victimized while living with her family in Hasidic communities in Belgium, and on trips to England and Israel.

"For at least seven years, the defendant sexually abused his daughter on a weekly, and sometimes daily basis," court papers said. "He moved her to different countries in order to continue the abuse and to escape any threat he would be apprehended as word of his abuse began to spread."

The daughter took the stand as the government's first witness wearing an orange scarf and pants suit, and with her hair down _ a mainstream look she said Weingarten forbade while growing up. She claimed her father had told that wearing red, orange or purple was wrong because it "reminds you of a woman's period."

She testified he first violated her one Sunday night after dinner, when he called her into his bedroom.

The daughter was to resume testifying on Tuesday.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/09/2009-03-09_rabbi_israel_weingartens_daughter_claims.html

Rabbi Israel Weingarten's daughter claims mother was sexual abuser in trial

BY John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, March 9th 2009, 9:33 PM

Jane Rosenberg

Rabbi Israel Weingarten cross examines his daughter Chaneh, during his molestation trial on Monday in Brooklyn.

The Weingarten Trial

Articles

• Rabbi's daughter tells of father's sexual abuse
• Rabbi cross-examines daughter at molest trial
• Accused perv rabbi grills crying daughter on details
• Ex: Rabbi half-nude with our daughter

Enough already.

A federal judge refused Monday to allow a rabbi charged with molesting his daughter to turn the courtroom into the "Jerry Springer" show.

The defendant, Israel Weingarten, who is acting as his own attorney, called two grown daughters Monday to testify that it was their mother who was the child molester, not him.

When Weingarten said he planned to call three more children, ages 13 to 18, to take the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court, the judge had enough.

"Your 13-year-old son is going to testify about sexual abuse by your wife?" Judge John Gleeson asked.

Weingarten replied that the boy would testify to physical abuse by his mother.

"I'm not going to permit it," Gleeson snapped.

Earlier the judge had allowed Weingarten's daughters Chayeh, 23, and Chaneh, 20, to testify that their mother had sexually abused their older sister, who claims she was repeatedly sodomized by her father starting in 1990 when she was 9 and continuing until she was 18.

Chayeh Weingarten testified her mother had sexually abused the victim and that she was warned by the victim that the Mafia would get her if she came forward.

The defendant is charged with transporting his daughter across international borders for the purpose of committing sexual crimes against her.

In her closing argument, prosecutor Rachel Nash asked the jury to consider the humiliation and embarrassment the victim endured by speaking publicly of the abuse.

The rabbi and his wife are divorced and he has claimed that she fabricated the abuse allegations as part of the bitter breakup.

jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

An abuse of belief

An abuse of belief

Feb. 14, 2009
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich , THE JERUSALEM POST

Abuse of women, children and the elderly in the religious Jewish community was long denied, on the grounds that observance of the Torah and Talmud prevented it. Physical, sexual, emotional, economic and other types of maltreatment of the weak, claimed this sector, occurs among secular Jews, but "not in our camp."

But this has been disproven by infamous cases of child abuse reported recently in the general media, and the opening of shelters for battered women in haredi neighborhoods.

THE RECENT ninth Jerusalem conference of ATEM Nefesh-Israel - an organization of observant social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and other therapists - had several sessions devoted to this topic. Although all the 200 or so participants were religious (most of them women), the public nature of the conference at the Bayit Vegan Guesthouse constituted a welcome airing of the religious community's "dirty laundry," though some rabbis still insist on hiding it. The organization of religious therapists was founded by Shaare Zedek Medical Center neuropsychologist Dr. Judith Guedalia and geriatric social worker and Melabev found Leah Abramowitz.

Clearly, most religious Jewish men are good or excellent husbands and fathers. No data were provided on how common abuse is in the religious - especially haredi - community, and how it compares with the secular community, but the fact that it was discussed is a healthy phenomenon.

"Twenty years ago, no one would dream of talking openly about violence in the religious family," said Rabbi Dr. Benjamin (Benny) Lau. The modern Orthodox rabbi - who is director of the Center for Judaism and Society, heads Jerusalem's Institute for Social Justice at Beit Morasha, serves as rabbi of the Ramban Synagogue in the Katamon quarter and lectures on Jewish law and social justice at Bar-Ilan University - delivered a keynote address at the conference. "If a community gives a legitimacy to violence and abuse, these can happen. There are closets in haredi society that are still not open."

AN EYE-OPENING workshop on "Spiritual Abuse" of haredi women opened the closet door a crack. Dr. Nicole Dahan, a social worker at the Ariel University Center and Tzipi Levy, a social worker in the Jerusalem Municipality, have done much to put this subject on the public agenda.

While until recently, men's abuse of their partners was known to involve physical, emotional, sexual and verbal violence, as well as economic abuse and the reduction of freedom, Levy and Dahan discovered that some haredi men use God and the commandments to abuse their wives.

Such spiritual abuse occurs solely in observant communities, mostly the ultra-Orthodox. Men who spend all their time in a kollel (yeshiva for married men) and have a very low level of secular education may be jealous of their wives, who are often required to work and support their large families. A growing number of haredi wives attend courses and colleges, earn degrees and work in advanced fields such as computers and even engineering. This may lead to abuse by their husbands.

Levy, who like Dahan is Orthodox and who has worked as a municipal coordinator against abuse of women, described a haredi man who told all the relatives invited to his daughter's bat mitzva that his wife was "crazy" and proceeded to bad-mouth her even though this is forbidden by halacha.

After running workshops for secular abused women in northern Jerusalem, she began to organize them for haredi women. Groups of women met regularly for a year and a half and poured out their hearts about what they live with. They told stories about husbands who denigrated their prayers. "One husband told his wife that her praying was a 'waste of time,' that 'God doesn't listen' to her and that there was 'no value' to her supplications." Levy recalled one woman whose husband screamed at her in the middle of the night when she got out of bed "immodestly" in her bare feet to breastfeed her crying newborn.

Another example of spiritual abuse was a woman who very much wanted to observe the commandment of "separating halla" - a commandment given especially to women. This involves the removal and burning of a portion of dough before baking bread containing at least 1.6 kilos of flour. The moment of separating the dough and reciting a special blessing is viewed as an especially propitious moment for praying for one's loved ones. The act is symbolic, like offering a sacrifice on the Temple altar in expiation of sins, as a tithe to the kohen or as a plea to God to protect the woman from sorrow and pain. Separation of the halla is also regarded as a way to have an easy, safe birth and a good livelihood.

But one husband denigrated his wife for "wasting money on flour" or "making a mess on Friday afternoons" when she should have been preparing for Shabbat, and declared it was cheaper to buy readymade halla. Levy said the husband then ordered a child to go to the nearest grocery and buy loaves. Instead of saying a blessing on the homemade halla, he did so on the store-bought bread. "He whispered to his wife: 'When I say the blessing on the wine [kiddush], I will not include you!' The woman was thus forced to eat without the required inclusion in this blessing that begins the Shabbat meal."

Another technique of spiritual abuse is to bring bread into rooms that the wife has already meticulously cleaned before Pessah, or disappearing when the woman has returned "pure" from the ritual bath - a time when couples traditionally have sexual relations after about 12 days of abstention. He is thus able to control his wife by using their religion.

DAHAN NOTED that this type of abuse involves repeated attempts to harm the wife's spiritual life. "It is ridiculing, minimizing the wife's spiritual activity. It is usually not a one-time occurrence," she said, after interviewing numerous victims who feel shame, guilt and lack of worth. "The more seriously the woman takes religion, the harder it is for her."

Dahan added that she believes spiritual abuse can cause even more damage than physical abuse, and that "it seems to occur much more in the haredi community than the modern Orthodox because Jewish law has such a supreme role in haredi lives."

"Could spiritual abuse be perpetrated by wives on their husbands?" one woman asked Dahan.

"It could be, but we focused on abuse of women."

One haredi woman in the room, with seating separated by gender, raised her hand and suggested it does go both ways. "I know a woman who goes to the Western Wall to pray every week, leaving her husband to cook for the family, and she refuses to accompany him to weddings and other ceremonial family events."

"A man may dress like a haredi in black and with all the paraphernalia," suggested another haredi woman, "but he is just acting. It may be he suffers from psychopathology, or he may feel jealous of his wife."

Dahan nodded her head. "Yes, he can have a split personality, giving the impression of living a religious life while hiding his bad side."

A participant from the male side of the audience said men who spiritually abuse their wives may get support from their rabbis, some of whom assert that a Jewish woman must do exactly what her husband says, even if he is abusing her. "The rabbi may even quote the Talmud to back the man's arguments and help him control her.

But another haredi man said that "not every such story is spiritual violence. The husband may legitimately be opposed to his wife wearing a wig instead of a hat."

Dahan commented that "therapists have to be very careful not to label everything immediately as spiritual abuse. There's a thin line between a woman serving or listening to her husband and being punished by him."

A hassidic woman in the audience said she knew of spiritual abuse of hassidic women whose husbands are "devoted to the Admor [the hassidic rebbe who heads their community], but go to all events while ignoring their wives. I know of a woman who was getting fertility treatments, but the husband wouldn't cooperate because he "had" to be at the rebbe's sermon and festive meal.

Levy said Jerusalem social workers and mental health professionals have accepted their description of spiritual abuse and now screen haredi women who come for help. "There are all kinds of problems that a non-religious therapist wouldn't identify. But there are observant therapists who have asked me whether it's a desecration of God's name if they investigate accusations of spiritual abuse. I say it is a consecration of God's name to identify such acts and treat victims."

The social workers were more vague about the treatment than the phenomenon. "I am sure that some things have to be changed in the education of haredi girls," said Dahan. "Many may need to get a feeling of empowerment so they can choose a husband carefully and detect signs of potential abusers. Nefesh is gradually bringing changes by educating and integrating rabbis."

"We must give haredi women the choice of whether to be a victim or not," added Levy. "Problems often appear in childhood. We have to help the victim identify the problem. Men will be willing to change if doing so doesn't cost him more than he gains. Rabbis can find a halachic solution for the problem. Sometimes, if there is no hope, they can suggest divorce. They can instruct the woman to pray at the Kotel to empower her."

A haredi woman in the audience suggested: "If the husband is unwilling to take the blame, the rabbi can blame the woman even though she is not at fault, and then the husband will be more willing to go for treatment."

So the "dirty laundry" is being exposed. Now it's time for the sunlight to do its work.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304778373&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Broken, Beaten & Scarred

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99913807

Abuse Scandal Plagues Hasidic Jews In Brooklyn

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Joel Engelman and Joe Diangelo are driving through their old Brooklyn neighborhood. Williamsburg is a place from another time and country. The shop signs are in Hebrew. The men scurry by in long black coats; their hair hangs in corkscrew curls. Married women wear wigs to cover their heads.

Engelman and Diangelo haven't been here in years. They just met a few weeks ago, but as they begin swapping stories and the names of family members, they realize they have a lot in common. Both men are in their 20s, both were raised as strict Hasidic Jews, and both fled their upbringing for the same reason.

"Are you ready for this?" Engelman asks Diangelo, glancing at his friend in the back seat.

"Yeah," Diangelo says, his breath quickening. "Yeah, I'll do it, just a quick pass by."

Diangelo grows quiet as we approach a nondescript brownstone building: a synagogue.

"See the Hebrew sign?" he says, pointing. "You go downstairs, and that's where the mikvah is."

The mikvah is a bathhouse usually used by women for ritual cleansing. But in some Hasidic communities, like this one, fathers bring their young sons on Friday afternoons before Shabbat begins. Twenty-one years ago, when he was 7, Diangelo recalls going to the mikvah with his father to find the place packed with naked men and boys.

"And I was in the tub, and I had my back turned, and somebody raped me while I was in the water," he says. He takes a shaky breath. "And I didn't know what happened. I couldn't make sense of it, really."

Diangelo says he never saw the man who abused him. These days, monitors are posted by the bath to stop any sexual activity. But back then, the boy was on his own. He told no one but began refusing to go to the mikvah. He left Orthodox Judaism when he was 17. He changed his name from Joel Deutsch and cut almost all ties with his family and friends.

Now, Diangelo wears black leather and mascara. He plays in a rock band and takes refuge in the heavy-metal lyrics of Metallica.

"There are so many songs, you know. They have a latest song, which is called 'Broken, Beaten & Scarred,' and one of the verses is: 'They scratched me, they scraped me, they cut and raped me.' " He laughs wearily. "And that's my life right there. When I listen to it, it gives me strength."

Allegations Of Abuse

For these two men, this is a tour through aching secrets and violent memories. Diangelo and Engelman are unusual because they let their names be used. But they believe that sexual abuse is woven throughout this Hasidic community.

For Engelman, the loss of innocence came at school.

"This is it, right here," he says.

Engelman parks his car across from the United Talmudical Academy, a hulking building on a desolate street. This was the yeshiva, or Jewish boys' school, that Engelman attended. Engelman says he was 8 years old, sitting in Hebrew class one day, when he was called to the principal's office. When he arrived, he says, Rabbi Avrohom Reichman told him to close the door.

"He motioned for me to get on his lap, and as soon as I got on the chair, he would swivel the chair from right to left, continuously," Engelman says. "Then he would start touching me while talking to me. He would start at my shoulders and work his way down to my genitals."

Engelman says this occurred twice a week for two months. He told no one for more than a decade. Reichman was, after all, a revered rabbi. Four years ago, he told his parents. And a year ago, when he heard that Reichman had allegedly abused several other boys, they confronted Reichman. When the school heard about it, they gave the rabbi a polygraph.

"He failed miserably," Engelman says. "So they told me, 'This guy is gone. This guy has to go.' "

But a few weeks later, a religious leader from the school approached Engelman's mother, Pearl. He posed an astonishing question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was the molestation?

She was speechless. Then she says, the man continued, " 'We found out there was no skin-to-skin contact, that it was through clothing.' So he's telling me, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, this was maybe a 2 or a 3, so what's the big fuss?' "

The school hired Reichman back. That was in July 2008 — one week after Joel Engelmen turned 23 and could no longer bring a criminal or civil case against the rabbi.

An Open Secret

Reichman and school officials declined to be interviewed for this story. But Rabbi David Niederman, who heads the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, says the school did its due diligence. He says the allegation was thoroughly investigated by an independent committee of lay people and rabbis.

"I'm convinced that they made a serious investigation," he says. "They felt that it's not credible."

Now Engelman has filed a long-shot civil suit against Reichman and the school, claiming they broke an oral contract.

Reichman's attorney, Jacob Laufer, says the lawsuit is baseless and that the community is fully behind the rabbi.

"Even after these accusations were publicly made," he says, "the parents continue to compete among themselves for the opportunity to have their children be educated by Rabbi Reichman."

The Reichman case is not isolated. Four ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn have been sued or arrested for abusing boys in the past three years. That's a tiny fraction of the actual abuse, says Hella Winston, author of Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels. She says that in researching her book, she encountered dozens of alleged victims who told her sexual abuse is an open secret in the Hasidic community. But the community is so insulated and the rabbis are so powerful that few dare to come forward.

"If I become known as an informer, then people also won't want to have anything to do with my family," she explains. "They won't want to marry my children, won't want to give me a job. This is the fear."

But more and more accusations against rabbis have begun to circulate. Last August, politician and radio talk show host Dov Hikind devoted an hourlong program to sexual abuse. He interviewed Pearl Engelman, who spoke under an alias, about her son's case.

The calls flooded in. Hikind, who is an Orthodox Jew himself, represents this area in the New York Assembly. He says after the show, people started showing up at his office with their stories.

"Fifty, 60, 70 people," he says, "but you got to remember for each person who comes forward, God only knows how many people are not coming forward."

Ongoing Investigations

Hikind refuses to release the names of alleged perpetrators, although he is working with the district attorney's office. He says the people who confided in him are afraid to go public, which creates a perfect situation for abusers.

"If you're a pedophile, the best place for you to come to are some of the Jewish communities," he says. "Why? Because you can be a pedophile and no one's going to do anything. Even if they catch you, you'll get away with it."

"To me, it does not make sense," says Niederman, of the United Jewish Organizations, "that so many people have been violated and for so many years they have been quiet. Something does not add up. It's being blown out of proportion — big time."

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes says he has 10 active sexual abuse cases involving Orthodox Jews — including a school principal who was recently arrested on a lead from Hikind. And Hynes says there could be many more. Yeshivas are private schools, which means they don't have to report accusations of sexual abuse to civil authorities.

"I've got no way to know if there's a pattern of concealing the conduct," he says.

Hynes says the Jewish leaders — like Catholic bishops — try to handle these affairs internally, through a rabbinical court. It's a practice that infuriates him.

"You have no business taking these cases to religious tribunals," Hynes says. "They are either civil or criminal in nature. Or both. Your obligation is to bring these allegations to us and let us conduct the investigation."

Hynes says he's trying to work out a memorandum of understanding with the rabbis, in which they promise to bring the prosecutor every allegation of abuse.

Pearl Engelman is skeptical: The rabbis have hardly been forthcoming in her son's case. Still, she loves her community and worries these allegations have tarnished it.

"This is a community of the most wonderful people, hardworking people who lead righteous lives," she says. "And it's just a few corrupt people who give us a bad taint."

Her son Joel isn't so sure it's that few. Anyway, for him, any remedies come too late.

"Pretty much, I left my childhood here," he says. "After I left here, I had a totally different picture of school, religion and life."

But Engelman hopes that his story will shine a light on the secret and, perhaps, protect the next generation of children in this community.

=================================================================

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF KINGS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOEL ENGELMAN,
Plaintiff, VERIFIED
COMPLAINT
-against-
UNITED TALMUDICAL ACADEMY, SATMAR Index No. 24507/08
BUNGALOW COLONY, and AVROHOM REICHMAN,
Defendants.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plaintiff, by and through the Law Office of Gerald P. Gross, as and for a
Verified Complaint, respectfully pleads as follows:
1. Plaintiff, Joel Engelman, is a natural person, born on June 24, 1985,
residing in Brooklyn, New York
2. Defendant, United Talmudical Academy (hereinafter, “UTA”), is a
nonpublic, religious school, operated by the Satmar Chassidic movement, which owns
operates, and manages certain school buildings in and about the Williamsburg section of
Brooklyn, and maintains an office at 82 Lee Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.
3. Defendant Satmar Bungalow Colony is located at or about the
intersection of State Route 17B and State Highway 55, in White Lake, New York, where
it operated a bungalow colony and camp.
4. That Joel Engelman, in or about October and November, 1993, was a
student at UTA, when he was eight years-old.
5. That defendant Avrohom Reichman is a natural person, residing in
Brooklyn, New York.
6. That Avrohom Reichman has, over the course of many decades, been
employed by UTA and the Satmar Bungalow Colony, including but not limited to, as a
principal20and “rebbe” (teacher of Jewish subjects).
7. That UTA and Reichman owed, and continue to owe, a fiduciary duty
to Joel Engelman.
8. That UTA and Reichman owed, and continue to owe, a special and/or
heightened duty of care to Joel Engelman.
9. That UTA and Reichman owed the duty of in loco parentis to Joel
Engelman.
10. That in or about October and November, 1993, when Reichman was a
principal employed at UTA, Reichman sexually assaulted and abused the eight year old
Joel Engelman.
11. That UTA then lacked and continues to lack basic rules protecting
children such as Joel Engelman from sexual assault, including but not limited to, written
rules and regulations prohibiting sexual contact between UTA principals, teachers and
other employees with children; rules prohibiting corporal punishment; rules prohibiting
UTA employees and children being alone together in the same room; rules requiring
background checks on all employees; rules requiring mandatory reporting of any and all
sexual abuse incidents to government law enforcement and child protection authorities;
rules requiring discipline, including immediate termination, of employees who sexually
abuse and/or inflict corporal punishment.
12. That UTA failed to adequately protect its student, Joel Engelman,
from sexual assault and abuse.
13. That as a result of UTA and Reichman’s wrongful conduct, Joel
Engelman suffered grievously.
14. That Joel Engelman suffered psychological and physical injury, which
required medical and psychological treatment; his grades, socialization, personal familial
and other relationships suffered; his sleep patterns suffered; his religious growth and
development in the Jewish religion suffered; he was required to attend multiple schools;
he suffered from panic and anxiety; and he suffered other serious and grievous personal
and other injuries.
15. That aware that the statute of limitations may be expiring for bringing
a criminal prosecution against Reichman, Joel Engelman contacted defendants in or about
early April 2008.
16. That delivered to Reichman in early April 2008 was a letter, in the
Yiddish language, Exhibit A herewith (together with an English translation), which
demanded Reichman’s immediate resignation from any type of employment where he
comes into close proximity to children, including school and camp.
17. That various Satmar officials then contacted Joel Engelman and his
family on various dates in April 2008, purporting to investigate the claims.
18. That during this investigation, and prior thereto, it was learned by
various Satmar officials, that there were multiple, credible complaints of sexual abuse
made against Reichman.
19. That in April 2008, Satmar officials, acting on behalf=2 0of UTA and the
Satmar Bungalow Colony, determined that Reichman was guilty of sexual abuse, against
Joel Engelman and others.
20. That in April 2008, it was agreed among all parties that Reichman
would be immediately and permanently terminated from all school, bungalow, camp, and
any other Satmar related employment where he might come into close proximity to
children; and Joel Engelman would not file any civil lawsuit, nor file any criminal
complaint with law enforcement authorities.
21. That defendants fraudulently induced Joel Engelman to enter into this
exchange of mutual promises, and oral contract.
22. That defendants’ motivation was the expiration of the criminal statute
of limitations for sex crimes on the 23rd birthday of Joel Engelman on June 24, 2008.
23. That in breach of the promises and oral contract, Reichman has most
recently been working as a teacher and/or rebbe at the Satmar Bungalow Colony, during
the Summer, 2008, in White Lake, New York.
24. That upon learning that Reichman is working at the Satmar Bungalow
Colony, Joel Engelman again attempted, in July 2008, to have Reichman removed from
his position by distributing in the White Lake region a Yiddish-language flyer, Exhibit B
herewith (with an English translation), warning people that Reichman has a history of
child sexual molestation.
25. That notwithstanding the written warning, Reichman continued to
teach at the Satmar Bungalow Colony and camp, and has been videotaped doing so.
26. That Joel Engelman has now been denied access to the New York
courts for the purpose of criminally prosecuting Avrohom Rei chman.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
27. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
28. That plaintiff has been fraudulently induced by defendants to enter
into a promise, suffered damage, and has been injured.
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION
29. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
30. Defendants conspired to defraud plaintiff, who has been damaged and
injured.
THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION
31. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
32. Defendants breached their promises to, and their contract with,
plaintiff, and as a result, plaintiff has been damaged and injured.
FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION
33. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
34. Defendants intentionally inflicted great emotional distress and trauma
upon plaintiff, by denying him the opportunity to criminally prosecute Avrohom
Reichman, in exchange for a fraudulent promise. This conduct is outrageous, and beyond
the bounds of all decent and humane society.
FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION
35. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
36. Defendants intentionally made false misrepresentations of fact, and as a result, plaintiff has been
damaged and injured.
SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION
37. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
38. That defendants intentionally inflicted harm upon plaintiff.
39. That there is no reasonable excuse nor justification for defendants’ conduct, which would
otherwise be lawful.
40. That plaintiff has been damaged, including special damages.
SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
41. Plaintiff repeats paras. 1-26 above.
42. Defendants have breached their fiduciary duty to plaintiff, and as a result, plaintiff has been
injured.
AD DAMNUM WHEREFORE, plaintiff demands judgment on all causes of action in the
amount of $5 million, together with punitive damages in an amount to be determined by
the jury, together with costs, disbursements, and applicable interest.
Dated: August 27, 2008
Cedarhurst, New York
Yours, etc.
_____________________________
ELLIOT B. PASIK
Of counsel, Law Office of Gerald P. Gross
Attorney for plaintiff
366 Pearsall Avenue, Suite 5
Cedarhurst, New York 11516
Telephone: (516) 371-2800