Tales of Chelm - The Word Of An Elder Is Respected Over The Word Of A Child

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57450886/orthodox-nyc-counselor-on-trial-in-sex-abuse-case/

Orthodox NYC counselor on trial in sex abuse case

NEW YORK — The abuse went on for nearly three years before the schoolgirl told anyone that her spiritual adviser was molesting her while he was supposed to be mentoring her about her religion, authorities said.

“They imagine they're the wave of the future, but it's only sewage flowing downhill”

Weberman attends fundraiser event for himself in May

But in Brooklyn's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, 53-year-old Nechemya Weberman has been embraced and defended as wrongly accused. The girl has been called a slut and a troublemaker, her family threatened and spat at on the street.

The rallying around Weberman, who goes on trial this month, and ostracizing of his accuser and her family reflects long-held beliefs in this insular community that problems should be dealt with from within and that elders have far more authority than the young. It also brought to light allegations that the district attorney was too cozy with powerful rabbis, a charge he vehemently denies.

"There are other people that claim misconduct and they can't come out because they're going to be re-victimized and ostracized by the community," said Judy Genut, a friend of the accuser's family who counsels troubled girls.
Brooklyn is home to about 250,000 ultra-orthodox Jews, the largest community outside of Israel. Step onto a Williamsburg street and tall guys in skinny jeans and tattoos are mingling with a flush of men in dark coats and hats carrying prayer books and speaking Yiddish. The Hasidic Jews appear to outsiders as though they come from another time; embracing centuries-old traditions, they wear black clothes, tall hats, long beards and earlocks. Women wear long skirts and cover their heads after they marry.

They have their own ambulances and schools, called yeshivas, their own civilian police and rabbinical courts. Members are encouraged to first speak to a rabbi before going to secular authorities — and as a result, cases rarely make it to outside law enforcement.

The topic has been studied and reported in the Jewish media for years and has recently made headlines in New York papers.

"They think that anyone who turns over anyone to the outside authorities is committing a transgression to the community at large," said Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies at Queens College.
The girl, now 17, was sent to Weberman at age 12 because she'd been asking theological questions and he had a reputation for helping people back on the spiritual path. He often counseled people, though he had no formal training. But during sessions, authorities say, he forced the girl to perform sex acts.

The girl started dressing immodestly, was deemed a troublemaker and removed from her school — one Weberman was affiliated with — and sent to another, family friends said. The allegations surfaced in 2011 when she told a guidance counselor there she'd been molested.

The Associated Press typically doesn't identify people who say they are the victims of sexual assault.

Weberman has pleaded not guilty, and articles in Hasidic newspapers have proclaimed his innocence and begged the community for support. More than 1,000 men showed up for a fundraiser aiming to raise $500,000 for his legal fees and, if he's convicted and jailed, money for his family.

"It's very hard for the town to believe the things that he's being accused of because he has a reputation of doing good and being good," Genut said.

George Farkas, Weberman's lawyer, said his client isn't guilty but is damned regardless because the allegations will taint his reputation.

The family has said they would've preferred to handle the allegations within the community. But when accusations are managed from the inside, victims are rarely believed and abusers aren't punished — in part because the word of an elder is respected over the word of a child, victims and advocates say.

Joel Engelman said he tried to work with yeshiva officials, finally confronting them at age 22 about a rabbi who abused him as a child. Engelman was given a lie detector test and encouraged to keep quiet about the allegations, and the rabbi was temporarily removed — long enough for Engelman to turn 23, making him too old under state law to file a complaint.

"It's that they don't want to believe that the rabbis that they've been raised to respect could be so cruel and could be so criminal," said Engelman, now 26.

His mother, Pearl, herself an activist, said the community is overwhelmingly good and believes people must be educated about the crime to start standing up for the victims.

"I'm not an anarchist, I'm not a rebel," said the 64-year-old mother of seven. "I love this community, and I want to change it for the better and make it safer for children."

Outside law enforcement has also had a difficult time. Before 2009, only a handful of sex abuse cases were reported within the ultra-orthodox community. Then, District Attorney Charles Hynes created a program called Kol Tzedek (Voice of Justice) aimed at helping more victims come forward about abuse, an underreported crime everywhere.

Part of the deal, along with a designated hotline and counseling, is that prosecutors don't actively publicize the names of accused abusers. The cases are still tried in open court, where the names are public.

Before Kol Tzedek, Hynes said, he struggled to mount a successful prosecution. "As soon as we would give the name of a defendant ... (rabbis and others) would engage this community in a relentless search for the victims," he said. "And they're very, very good at identifying the victims. And then the victims would be intimidated and threatened, and the case would fall apart."

Since then, 100 of the total 5,389 cases in the borough have come from the ultra-orthodox community, the district attorney's office said. Hynes also started a taskforce to combat intimidation attempts — and has said rabbis have a duty to come forward if they have been told of abuse.

But victims' rights advocates say Hynes has purposefully ignored some cases and hasn't pushed as strongly for full prosecutions of others — bowing to powerful rabbis in exchange for political support, a charge he strongly denies.

"He doesn't take care of victims," said Nuchem Rosenberg, a rabbi who says he was ostracized for speaking out about abuse. "He takes care of those in power, so they can all keep power."

Genut said the accuser is ready to testify. Her family, though, is looking for a higher judgment than criminal court.
"They believe that God's going to take revenge on him," she said. "They're suffering a lot and they say one nice day God's going to show us that he did stick up for us."

Rampant Witness Intimidation In The Ultra-Orthodox Community Forces Establishment Of New Task Force Headed by Chief Of The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Rackets Bureau

http://m.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/rackets_bureau_chief_vows_openness_witness_intimidation

Rackets Bureau Chief Vows Openness On Witness Intimidation

Rackets bureau chief Michael Vecchione: Signals wide reach in battle to combat witness intimidation. NY Daily News

Vecchione, part of new DA task force, says ‘we should be limited by nothing’ in fight against community pressure in abuse cases.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Hella Winston

Special To The Jewish Week

The chief of the Brooklyn district attorney’s rackets bureau and a member of the DA’s new task force to combat witness intimidation in the ultra-Orthodox community indicated a willingness to explore all available avenues to tamp down on the problem — including “[picking] up the phone and [calling] the U.S. attorney.”
Michael Vecchione’s comments came Tuesday in an interview with The Jewish Week, and they suggest an openness to receiving information from community members in sex abuse cases that his own boss, DA Charles Hynes — at least based on his recent statements to the press — appears to lack.
In public statements over the course of the past few weeks, Hynes has described the problem of intimidation of Orthodox abuse victims as worse than anything he has seen in organized crime or police corruption cases.
“We should not be limited by what [people in the community] believe intimidation is,” Vecchione said in response to a comment by The Jewish Week that many in the community fear that threats of social ostracism themselves may not be actionable as a form of intimidation.

“[Ostracism] could be [intimidation],” he asserted, noting that  “the statute is specific yet broad enough, and there is a catch-all phrase that would get us into that.
“We should be limited by nothing,” Vecchione continued, adding that “[community members] should just bring to us what they have and then we will go from there.”
(Vecchione is apparently no stranger to prosecutions involving the Orthodox community. Indeed, a piece in Monday’s New York Times about a 1994 kidnapping case seems to lend weight to longstanding claims that Hynes has historically treated Orthodox defendants with kid gloves. In that case, according to the Times, Hynes’ office initially sought to drop the case and then entered into a plea deal that was later overturned by a State Supreme Court justice. The prosecutor on that case was Vecchione.)
According to the law, Vecchione explained, if someone “interferes with a prosecution by attempting to have a witness absent themselves or change their testimony” then that person is “guilty of one of the crimes that fits into the category of intimidating a witness.”
Asked whether rabbis, like David Zwiebel, the executive vice president of the haredi umbrella group Agudath Israel, who contend that reporting to the authorities before first consulting a rabbi is mesirah (the act of informing) — an action punishable by death — could themselves be committing a crime, Vecchione said that “[they] could, depending upon what the person who is making the statements is talking about and to [whom].”
According to Vecchione, this hinges on whether the person is speaking generally or whether the “intimidating statement” can be connected to “a particular case … in which a person decides not to come forward or change their testimony or something of that nature.”
“There has to be a connection between what the potential defendant and/or intimidator says and the witness in a particular case,” he continued, noting that this could be “very difficult” to establish.
Hynes himself has said that he would not take action regarding such statements, but for a different reason. Responding to a question posed by radio host Zev Brenner Monday night about whether a rabbi who says reporting is mesirah can be prosecuted, Hynes said that “no legal authority ... allows me to object to [such statements] … because they are a religious interpretation.”
Some experts disagree with both Hynes and Vecchione. According to James A. Cohen, a professor at Fordham Law School and an expert in the area of witness tampering, “A [general], public statement is obstruction. In this country we respect religion … but that doesn’t give [religious leaders] license to stand at the pulpit and say ‘you must consult with a religious figure … before you go to the authorities.’ This is obstruction of justice, plain and simple.”
Marci Hamilton, the Paul R. Verkuil chair in public law at Cardozo School of Law, concurs.
“Where Hynes gets it wrong is that he cannot prosecute someone for the content or viewpoint of their speech, but he can prosecute them for inciting imminent lawless action.
“Where the rabbis are inciting their congregations to obstruct justice or endanger children,” Hamilton explained, “they are crossing the line from protected speech to illegal conduct.”
Vecchione also allowed that such statements might be viewed as an interference with community members’ civil rights — a theory that has been advanced by Orthodox attorney and author Michael Lesher. But the rackets bureau chief added that “you have to ask the federal authorities about that because … I don’t want to speak to that because I’m not familiar with the law.”
Lesher has noted “under federal law, it is a crime to use the threat of force to interfere with someone’s right to the benefits of state law, including the criminal justice system, if you make that threat because of the victim’s religion.”
“By invoking the language of mesirah — a religious offense that authorizes the use of deadly force against any Jew who ‘informs’ to the authorities — Agudah’s stated policy amounts to a deliberate call for the use of force to stop a Jew, because he or she is a Jew, from going to police against a rabbi’s instructions,” Lesher told The Jewish Week. This could make the Agudah and anyone else making such statements “complicit in a civil rights crime any time an Orthodox Jew gets a threat for talking to the police when a rabbi told him not to,” Lesher believes.
Vecchione also said that the DA’s task force might consider convening an investigative grand jury to gather information without a particular target, something that he — and Cohen, among others — have acknowledged is “a very powerful tool in terms of investigating organized crime.”
“The techniques that we use to investigate organized crime can very well be used in this situation as well,” he added.
Vecchione’s statements stand in contrast to those made recently by Hynes about those who have attempted to bring to his office information about intimidation.
Late last month, The Jewish Week reported that a father whose son was allegedly molested by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko provided information both to the police and, in an affidavit, the DA about a harassing phone call he received originating — according to the caller ID on his phone — from the school, Yeshiva Torah Temimah, where the alleged abuse occurred and which the father is now suing. (The same family pressed criminal charges against Rabbi Kolko, who was allowed to plead to misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a child. Rabbi Kolko is now awaiting trial on charges he violated an order of protection that was part of the plea deal.)
In response to a question from WCBS at a recent, unrelated press conference, Hynes seemed to minimize the father’s claims, saying that he “was the victim of a telephone hang up” from “something called Torah Termina [sic] on Ocean Parkway” and that the affidavit he submitted charged “no criminality.” However, Cohen told The Jewish Week several weeks ago that “threatening phone calls” — even outside the context of a criminal or civil action — “is criminal conduct.”
The DA also appeared to cast doubt on the father’s report that the call came from the school, saying that he wished “we had that technology [that the father had] because we have one hell of a time tracing phone calls” and went on to ask, “How do we find the person that made that phone call?”
While the father acknowledges that identifying the exact person who made the call from the school’s number could be difficult or even impossible, he also noted in an interview with The Jewish Week that his phone company informed him that it would release his phone records if ordered to do so by the police or the courts. He also contends that he was given no indication that the DA or the police even investigated the claims made in his police report (which he also shared with The Jewish Week) and could not in fact get anyone from the office to return his calls for months, until after a reporter from the New York Post started making inquiries.
The district attorney also declined to meet with victims’ advocate and psychologist Dr. Asher Lipner, who requested through former Mayor Ed Koch a meeting “to share ideas and information” with the DA’s task force through (Lipner has been treating survivors of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox community for over a decade).

The Jewish Week has obtained a copy of an e-mail sent by Dr. Lipner to members of the DA’s Kol Tzedek staff about the information discussed in those meetings (one of which included advocate Ben Hirsch of Survivors for Justice, and was referenced in a separate e-mail). This information included allegations of witness tampering and obstruction by named rabbis and community-based organizations. Lipner was apparently told that these staff members would be putting an assistant district attorney from the rackets bureau in touch with him, but this never materialized, according to Lipner.
However, if Vecchione’s statements are any indication, Lipner may well get another chance.
“Tell people that they have someone they can come to,” Vecchione instructed The Jewish Week.  “And that our rackets division is open for business.”

BREAKING NEWS!!! Yeshiva Of Brooklyn Being Investigated For Child Sex Abuse/Coverup - VICTIM (SURVIVOR) SPEAKS OUT!!! WPIX (CHANNEL 11) WATCH VIDEO

By MARY MURPHY pix11.com | @murphypix

9:25 p.m. EDT, June 1, 2012

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

We Have Enough Gun Control. What We Need Is Idiot Control.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/may/05/ultra-orthodox-child-abuse

The ultra-Orthodox face up to abuse
Catholicism doesn't have a monopoly on child abuse scandals, as the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has discovered

The uncovering of sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders in the Catholic church is mirrored within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. As with the Catholic church, where the abuse was uncovered early on in the US, institutional child sexual abuse is starting to be prosecuted in New York. And as with the Catholic church, which has begun to change its stance on prosecuting priests, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders are beginning to permit the reporting to police of these crimes. As with the Catholic church, Jewish victim support groups and advocates have brought these crimes to the public's attention. The question is whether, as with the Catholic church, this is far too little far too late.
A little known Jewish law called mesira, found in the Talmud with some scriptural support, forbids a Jew from reporting another Jew to the gentile authorities. The law was in response to non-Jewish governments whose courts were staffed by antisemites. According to Jewish leaders, those courts looked for any excuse to find against a Jew. Many rabbis took a rather dim view of gentile legal processes, advocating that their courts were flawed, antisemitic and less capable than Jewish courts. Mesira essentially allowed Jewish courts to retain control over all disputes, ensuring that religious law prevailed.
In today's society, where there are proper, transparent and just courts of law, the law of mesira has largely been abandoned. Most Jewish communities recognise the legal system of the countries where they live; saving relatively few disputes, mostly centring on religious issues such as divorce, for the Jewish courts. However, the ultra-Orthodox communities still use mesira to prohibit any Jew being reported to the non-Jewish authorities.
As can be imagined, this is a pretty dangerous stance to take, particularly in terms of violent criminals. Perpetrators of, for example, domestic violence, child abuse, or sexual crimes, are often protected by the ultra-Orthodox communities and dealt with "in-house". They are sometimes beaten up by the self-appointed Jewish "police", and often moved to areas where there is no knowledge of their crimes.
Perpetrators of child sexual abuse within ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities have been afforded similar protection to Catholic priests. Rabbis have continued to teach, in their own or in new institutions. Yehuda Kolko allegedly had his crimes covered up by the Yeshiva Torah Temima school where he taught for over 25 years. Communities have shielded fugitives, such as Nachman Stal, who fled charges in Israel and was protected for almost a decade by the North London ultra-Orthodox community.
As with the Catholic church, silencing the victims has kept secret, at least from the wider public, ongoing abuse within ultra-Orthodox Jewish institutions. Various Jewish laws have been twisted and misused to threaten victims with divine retribution for reporting crimes. Families are told that their other children will not be given suitable matches for marriage, or won't be accepted by good schools, if the boat is rocked. Similar threats of communal ostracism were used by the Catholic church in Ireland to silence the many people who knew of abuse in Christian Brothers' institutions.
Within many closed, religious communities there is fear of communal repercussions, religious leaders, and ultimately of God. Fears are exploited to allow grave crimes to be covered up, and to continue within religious institutions. Motives of religious leaders may be hard to prove, but there are clear financial incentives as well as issues of power and control that have influenced the positions taken towards perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
There are huge financial implications for admitting abuse and permitting court cases. In the US alone, the Catholic church has paid over $2.5bn to victims. Little wonder then that ultra-Orthodox rabbis opposed New York's Markey bill which sought to extend the statute of limitations for criminal and civil cases about child sexual abuse. Now that abuse is coming to light, the financial implications could be devastating for institutions that covered up allegations and continued to employ abusers.
Similarly, leaders, seeking retain a tight grip of control over their communities, covered up scandals to avoid schisms, splits or defections. Yet these tactics have backfired. In silencing victims and protecting perpetrators, these religious communities face a crisis beyond anything they could have imagined.
As in the Catholic church, things are starting to change in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world. Top rabbis, such as Rav Elyashiv, have come out in support of reporting abuse to the police. Indeed, they have emphasised that prosecution is necessary to keep communities safe and to protect children. Self-appointed Jewish "police" in Flatbush have now told their community to report all abuse directly to the gentile police. Clearly, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world is learning from the recent spate of cases, the Catholic church's experience, and listening to the victims. But can it be enough to say that the institutions will change only once the scandals have broken, or is a Catholic-style crisis of faith about to hit the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community?
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http://blog.nj.com/njv_publicblog/2010/04/sexual_abuse_rampant_across_de.html

Sexual Abuse Rampant Across Denominations.

By Golumba

April 12, 2010, 4:54PM

FailedMessiah.com has done yeoman's work unfurling the hidden sex abuse in the Jewish community that's NOW going on, to the detriment of the children. This isn't about egregious abuse from 15 to 50 years ago, like the horrific Catholic history, but forums addressing crimes against New jersey children occuring NOW in Passaic, Lakewood and Teaneck. It's a familiar, but ghastly, routine: The victim reports the molestation to a rabbi, rather than face SHUNNING...not only for himself, but also for his entire family... by the whole community for bringing the crime to the attention of the police. When the rabbi takes the complaint of sexual abuse, the matter is covered up, handled "in house". Thanks to a new honesty, pedophile arrests are up 800% in Brooklyn, alone, amongst the Orthodox Jewish community.
In Lakewood, N.J., the "Rome" of Orthodox Judaism, the arrest of a Yeshiva teacher for molesting a young boy was a beginning, just last July. Nonetheless, pressure remains to let the child victims suffer and to clear all criminal abuse through a rabbi, and a closed rabbinical court. As one blogger noted, these religious leaders deny that "pedophilia is not a right of those in authority". In New Jersey, all matters that have been brought before a rabbinical court involving sexual abuse need to be brought to the attention of the police and the district attorney. This is an ongoing criminal conspiracy if rabbinical authorities are covering up crimes against children. Where's the Grand Jury?
Next: Brooklyn Orthodox sexual abuse and the good works of DA Charles "Joe" Hynes, a Catholic prosecutor with close ties to the new Orthodox reformers. A year ago he brought 26 sexual abuse cases against Yeshiva teachers, rabbis, camp counselors, merchants, and relatives of children. Yet, one Brooklyn rabbi cited Jewish law that calls for the killing of a Jew who informs on another Jew...even a pedophile. It gets worse.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/rosen04162010.html

A Case of Selective Journalism?

The New York Times vs. the Pope

By DAVID ROSEN
Since mid-February, the New York Times has led a systematic campaign exposing sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church. The Times has run approximately four dozen front-page articles, follow-up stories and news reports as well as op-ed pieces and letters-to-the-editor on the sexual abuse of young people by Catholic prelates in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the globe. As America’s news-source of record, its attentions to this issue has been picked up by other media and also led to additional local follow-up reports. The Times’ reporting has also led to denunciations by the Vatican and others.

However, reading the Times’ coverage, it is striking that comparable issues of sexual abuse have not received the same sustained, in-depth, often front-page and editorial attention. Why has the sexual abuse of female soldiers in the military, of youthful inmates in the nation’s prison system, of boy scouts, of teen prostitutes, of Mormon girls and of youths within the Brooklyn Hassidic community not received the same scale of reporting? Indeed, these issues have been covered in occasional daily news reports. But why have they not received a comparable degree of attention?

As evident by what it chooses to focus its investigative resources on, the Times, like other information organizations, articulates an often-unstated political perspective. Its reprehensible policy of backing the Bush administration’s illegal invasion of Iraq, particularly through its publication of Judith Miller’s false reports, is illustrative of such unstated political decision-making masquerading as journalism. A more recent case is its cheerleading coverage of the rightwing campaign against Acorn and the disingenuous mea culpa by its Public Editor, Clark Hoyt.

A reader of the Times can appreciate the in-depth reporting about sexual abuse within the Church: it is a shameful practice that needs to be fully exposed. However, one must question the underlying agenda or intentionality of this campaign, especially in light of the fact that similar attention has not been given to other pressing sexual abuse issues that take place on a daily bases.

* * *

Word about America’s gravest religious sex scandal involving Catholic priests began to emerge in the mid-1980s, but did not fully grip the nation’s attention until the late-‘90s. And the New York Times did not break the story.

Sexual abuse of women and youthful male and female parishioners by individual Catholic clergy has taken place since time immemorial. However, with the rise of post-‘60s political environment, abuse finally came under intense public scrutiny. According to journalist Carl Cannon, Louisiana writer Jason Berry was the first to begin to raise the issue of sexual abuse by priests and the Church’s cover-up. The issue began to generate national attention when “The Phil Donahue Show” covered it on St. Patrick’s Day, 1988.

By the early-‘90s, momentum was building against the Church’s cover-up when indictments were handed down against John Porter for molesting twenty-eight boys in Fall River, MA, and John Geoghan, who molested young boys from at least 1972 but was not defrocked until 1998. In 2001, Kristen Lombardi, writing in the “Boston Phoenix,” directly tied Geoghan to the local Catholic hierarchy, naming Boston Cardinal Bernard Law as complicit in the cover-up. Geoghan was eventually convicted of child molestation and, in 2003, was murdered in prison; Law resigned in disgrace in 2005 and moved to the Vatican where he was rewarded with a high post in the Church bureaucracy.

Pope Benedict XVI visited the U.S. in the spring of ’08, the first visit by a pope since the Church pedophile scandal broke. He came, in part, to reassure the millions of American Catholics who were deeply disturbed by the Church hierarchy’s role in the cover-up. At a well-publicized but private get-together, he met with victims of the abuse who came from two groups, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and Voice of the Faithful. According to SNAP’s Edward Lozzi, “the meeting was forced upon the Pope by the victims.” He adds:

Pope Benedict was very uncomfortable meeting with the fiverepresentative victims who had been raped by priests and had their lives and families changed forever. This was a private meeting of course. The Pope was visibly embarrassed and in agony throughout the whole encounter.

Lozzi concludes, quite pessimistically, “… Ultimately that April meeting was just a publicity stunt by Benedict.”

Pope Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger, has lived nearly his entire adult life behind the walls of the Church. At age 12, he enrolled in a seminary near where he grew up in Traunstein, Germany. In 1945, after demobilizing from the German military and a brief internment as a POW, he entered Catholic seminary in Freising and was ordained in 1951. He became Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and, moving up the Church hierarchy, became Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faithful in 1981. In 1998, Cardinal Ratzinger became Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals and was elected Pope in 2005.

The Church’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faithful was traditionally known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. It was formally established in 1542 and, for the last four-and-a-half centuries, has enforced official Church doctrine. In the Church’s heyday, it undertook trials for heresy against both Protestants and Catholic reformers, including Galileo. As Cardinal and subsequently as pope, Ratzinger has steadfastly moved to maintain orthodox control of the Church’s bureaucracy and increasingly diverse followers.

In particular, the pope has systemically moved to reverse the changes instituted in Vatican II. These actions included: a return to the Latin mass; lifting of the excommunications of four reactionary bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X; moving to canonizing Pius 12 (who abandoned the Jews during WWII); and campaigning against Latin America priests sympathetic to liberation theology as exemplified by the recent appointment of the conservative (and Opus Dei member) archbishop of San Antonio, Mexiccan-born Jose Gomez, as archbishop of Los Angeles. Some within the Church wonder if he will overturn Vatican II’s most important action and reinstate the charge that Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus.

The pope continues to appear uncomfortable and embarrassed by the pedophile scandal, unable to grasp the scandal’s full moral and legal consequences. While Benedict has, up until recently, appeared to take seriously sexual-abuse charges against the clergy, he is ultimately a faithful follower of the traditions of the Inquisition. His primary duty seems to be to protect those who adhere to Church dogma even if they break secular laws. As such, the indiscreet actions of loyal servants of the bureaucracy are hushed up, offenders shifted to another parish and abusers permitted to continue to serve the Church. Sadly, it appears the neither the pope nor his loyal minions really comprehend (or care about) the institutional failure at the heart of the scandal: where Vatican II sought to open the Church to its faithful, Benedict seeks to limit accountability to only those who accept faithful obedience.

* * *

A review of Google listings of New York Times articles about the Catholic Church sexual abuse as well as sex scandals and related topics provides an invaluable insight into the newspaper’s apparent coverage policies. Like most media outlets, the Times gave extensive coverage to the misadventures of Tiger Woods, John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer, among many other sex scandals involving celebrities and politicians.

The Times also reports on a wide array of other sex-related issues and a few are given significant coverage. Like other media outlets, the Times extensively covered the Texas polygamy scandal involving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). From February thru June 2008, it ran about two-dozen articles, many informative accounts, about this religious cult and the ham-fisted efforts by Texas law enforcement to break it. Sadly, since the original controversy, the Times has given no real attention to this subject. [see “The New Texas Two-Step: Polygamy & State Regulation of Sexual Life,” CounterPunch, April 19-20, 2008]

Unfortunately, its coverage of most sex-related issues tends to be more episodic, with an occasional news report. Examples of such coverage include the use of rape as a military weapon in the Congo; the sexual abuse of boy scouts by scoutmasters; the sexual abuse of imprisoned young people; and the failed policies relating to sex offenders. These stories are often tied to a horrendous event, the issuance of an important study or an on-going court proceeding.

An illuminating example of this type of reporting involves the increasing incidence of rape and sexual abuse of U.S. female military personnel. The Times recently reported on the Defense Department’s release of its annual report “Defense Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services.” [see “The Third Front: Sexual Assault in the U. S. Military,” CounterPunch, March 19-21, 2010] While the Times has addressed this issue repeatedly over the last decade, it has, like its coverage of Mormon polygamists, never undertaking a rigorous or in-depth investigation of the institutional sexism at their heart of the military.

The Times’ coverage of sexual abuse and a religious group is revealing. In March 2010, “Rabbi” Baruch Lebovits, a Brooklyn Hasidic Jew, was found guilty on eight of 10 counts of sexually molesting Jewish teens in 2004 and 2005. Lebovits, was the owner of a Borough Park travel agency and faces up to seven years in prison. This story was not reported by the New York Times but by the New York Daily News.

Sadly, the Times has offered little coverage of the mushrooming sexual abuse scandal involving Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Hasidics are ultra-orthodox Jewish sects such as the Satmars, Vizhnitzs and Bobovs. In October 2009, like other New York print and media outlets, it covered Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’ press conference in October 2009. As it restated from a press release, over the preceding year, 26 Orthodox Jewish “yeshiva teachers, rabbis, camp counselors, merchants and relatives of children” were arrested and eight were convicted; 18 still awaited trial. [NY Times, October 13, 2009] Unfortunately, the cases involving Rabbis Avrohom Reichman and Yehuda Kolko, yet the 26 originally arrested by DA Hynes, have not been reported.

The Times can take an adversarial position with regard sex-related issues. During the summer and fall of 2008, it ran a series of articles regarding the horrendous treatment of teen prostitutes by the New York police and Court system and the need to pass the Safe Harbor Act for Exploited Children then pending before the State legislature. It also ran an editorial supporting Gov. David Paterson’s signing of the law. [see “Teen Prostitution in America: Looking for Safe Harbor,” CounterPunch, August 2-3, 2008.]

The New York Times has devoted extensive investigative resources and page space to exposing the sins of the Catholic Church and its sclerotic leadership to cover-up the long-endemic pedophilia scandal. This reporting has been valuable and one can hope for more of it. But one must ask why such extensive selective journalism has been devoted to this one sinful subject? Why has not similar attention been paid to the other equally troubling examples of sexual abuse of the young, of women and other powerless people, many living in the Times’ very backyard?

David Rosen is the author of “Sex Scandals America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming” (Key, 2009); he can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

Brooklyn Man testifies Rabbi Baruch Lebovitz molested him as teenager

In a halting voice, a 22-year-old man on Wednesday accused a Brooklyn rabbi of repeatedly molesting him when he was a teenager.

Supporters of Rabbi Baruch Lebovits packed the courtroom as the accuser took the witness stand to describe a series of assaults in a car between 2004 and 2005.
"Did he say anything?" Assistant District Attorney Miss Gregory asked.
"He said something but I don't remember," murmured the young man, dressed in jeans, white shirt, tie and a yarmulke on shoulder-length black scraggly hair.
He spoke so softly and with such hesitation that Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango repeatedly asked him to speak up.
"How did you feel?" Gregory asked of the alleged attacks.
"Very uncomfortable and confused," he said.
He sat less than 20 feet from Lebovits, 59, who was surrounded by supporters.
The rabbi, who owns a Borough Park travel agency, faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of a criminal sexual act in the second-degree.
He's also awaiting trial on charges of molesting two others.
The man accusing him yesterday admitted he was in rehab for heroin and crack addiction that began after the incidents.
"It's a shame to talk about it and I have low self-esteem," he said, explaining to jurors why he didn't lodge charges until he'd left the Hasidic community.
Lebovits' lawyer hammered him in opening statements, calling him a con man with a history of drugs, crime and missed court dates.
"You're going to be sold a bill of goods," lawyer Arthur Aidala said, claiming the accuser intends to sue his client. "This is a con man that's going to take the stand.
"There's no video, there's no eyewitness, no DNA, there's no fingerprints... That evidence doesn't exist because all these acts Miss Gregory described didn't happen."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/03/2010-03-03_brooklyn_man_testifies_rabbi_baruch_lebovitz_molested_him_as_teenager.html#ixzz0h9xg8DX7

VeeBee

4:17 PM
Mar 3, 2010

Attorney Arthur Aidala: Generally MEN (young OR old) do not get on the witness stand and admit they've been molested unless it's true. Your client is going DOWN (as he should). Your client is DISGRACEFUL!!

hjo4

4:53 PM
Mar 3, 2010

A Rabbi Oy vey what is the world coming to.

ezekiel14

5:00 PM
Mar 3, 2010

hj04, let's see if he gets sentenced to any jail time.

monzon3

5:19 PM
Mar 3, 2010

Gee, a rabbi? How naughty. I hope the authorities put him in jail.

theodore bundy

5:30 PM
Mar 3, 2010

>>>>"There's no video, there's no eyewitness, no DNA, there's no fingerprints...<<<< How about his ugy, scary looking mug? That's all the evidence you need. That is pure evil in those eyes. The fact he runs a travel agency and calls himself a rabbi at the same time is enough evidence too! Guilty!

Anacondaman

5:31 PM
Mar 3, 2010

Yes, a rabbi... priests & pastors aren't the only depraved child predators; in fact, some have been GOPers, too. Check out: http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Republican_Sex_Scandals

seth fardy

5:35 PM
Mar 3, 2010

And democrats

Yankees621

5:36 PM
Mar 3, 2010

I understand Aidala has to defend his client but ad hominem attacks on an alleged abuse victims is unseemly. And, it turns jurors off. Male victims rarely, if ever, come forward. Add to that this young man came from the very cloistered Hasidic community where abuse of all sorts, especially at the hands of rabbis, is covered up. Already we hear about how his "supporters" turned out to intimidate the young man. The rabbi may be able to fool a jury and his congregation, but God sees all.

Azazel

5:38 PM
Mar 3, 2010

Cultic ritual and regulations is just a bunch of BS, when are people going to learn that these guy are just people; priest, pastor, rabbi, or iman. No God talks to them anymore than that God would talk to you. Break down the walls of religious organizations and you will be free !

NYCCrocheter

6:18 PM
Mar 3, 2010

Most unfortunately, the bulk of clergy abuse allegations are not from con artists, but from deeply disturbed people with a long history of substance abuse and/or use of psychotropic prescription medications like Prozac. Prozac halluncinations are based on worst fears. The accusers aren't horrible, but they are extremely unreliable and very sad, poor souls.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=89678#ixzz0h9yQ7Rk2

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

http://gothamist.com/2010/03/03/on_trial_rabbi_accused_on_hundreds.php 

Today a 22-year-old testified In Brooklyn Supreme Court that he was sexually molested by Borough Park Rabbi Baruch Lebovits. The young man, who's no longer part of the Hasidic community, was dressed in "jeans, white shirt, tie and a yarmulke" and spoke softly, according to the Daily News. "How did you feel?" asked the assistant district attorney. "Very uncomfortable and very confused," he responded. Lebovits will soon stand trial on charges of sodomizing two others, and has been accused of hundreds more counts of child rape and abuse [Pdf Charge Sheets]. Still, his lawyer called the witness a "con man" and warned the jury, "You're going to be sold a bill of goods."
Lebovits's accuser told the court the rabbi had assaulted him multiple times in a car between 2004 and 2005. Since the incident, he said, he's fallen prey to heroin and crack addiction. "It's a shame to talk about it and I have low self-esteem," said the man, who waited to press charges until after leaving the tight-knit religious group. But the defense railed on: "There's no video, there's no eyewitness, no DNA, there's no fingerprints... That evidence doesn't exist because all these acts...didn't happen."
If convicted, Lebovits faces a sentence of up to seven years on charges of criminal sexual acts in the second-degree. Late last year a Hasidic man named Motty Borger committed suicide by jumping from the seventh story of a hotel two days into his honeymoon, having confided to friend that he'd been molested by a prominent rabbi. According to Failed Messiah and the Post, that rabbi was Lebovits.

[1] | Gwinny

Just as in any community, the Hasids have pervs in their midst. This doesn't surprise me at all.

evbo replied to comment from Gwinny

Indeed. The only thing that surprises me is that we haven't heard about anything like this sooner. Move over, Catholics...it's the Hasids' turn!

Monster On The Loose: Avrohom Mondrowitz Abominations Has Possibly Snared More Victims In Israel

The FORWARD reports

Mondrowitz Escapes Another Trial

By Nathan Jeffay

Published January 20, 2010

Haifa, Israel — For several dozen Americans who say they were sexually abused as children, news from Israel on January 14 ripped the scab off a still unhealed wound. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that Avrohom Mondrowitz, their alleged abuser, will not be extradited to stand trial in America.

But that is not the only recent decision regarding Mondrowitz. The Forward has learned that Israeli prosecutors have decided Mondrowitz will not be charged in connection with child pornography they say they found in his home in 2007.

Justice Ministry spokeswoman, Adi Simchovitz said that the child pornography case against Mondrowitz was closed in March 2009 “for lack of evidence.” She declined to offer any details.

Under Israeli law, possession of child pornography is a criminal offense.

Mondrowitz, an American Orthodox rabbi and psychotherapist, fled the United States in 1985, before an arrest warrant could be executed on an indictment handed down against him for child abuse. He will be released from house arrest in Jerusalem on January 24, unless the Israeli government appeals.

Survivors for Justice, a New York-based support group for Orthodox victims of sexual abuse, termed the court’s extradition decision a “travesty.”

“At the very least, the authorities in Israel should be pursuing criminal charges against Mondrowitz for recent crimes that both they and the U.S. authorities have clear and convincing evidence of,” said SFJ president Ben Hirsch.

The saga of Mondrowitz’s escape from extradition began when he was indicted in Brooklyn on multiple counts of sodomy and sexual abuse of five children.

He fled to Israel, where courts ruled that because Israel’s definition of rape did not include sodomy, Mondrowitz had not broken Israeli law and could not be extradited.

Then, in 2007, the U.S. – Israel extradition agreement was amended to cover homosexual rape and his case was reconsidered. The Israeli government jailed him and sought an extension of his incarceration. At a hearing, prosecutors cited four pornographic films they said had been found during a search of his Jerusalem home. Judge Shimon Feinberg agreed to an extension, noting the government’s claim that Mondrowitz was “a threat to the public as evidenced by the material discovered in his home.” Mondrowitz was ultimately granted house arrest.

The Supreme Court ruled it could not apply the 2007 amendment retroactively.

Michael Lesher, a Passaic, N. J., attorney who represents six American Jews who claim Mondrowitz abused them as children, said, “We know now, which we didn’t before, just what kind of denial we are facing.

“We feel outrage, we feel bitterness and we feel rising anger that bringing Mondrowitz to justice is being resisted.”

One of the first instances in America involving ultra-Orthodox teachers and rabbis preying on their students to come to public attention, the Mondrowitz case is thought to have been prompted by complaints from more than 100 accusers, most of whom encountered Mondrowitz in the 1980s when he was practicing as a psychologist in Brooklyn.

Although Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes instituted the extradition proceedings against Mondrowitz in 2007, he has come under fire from child advocates who say he should have done so earlier.

Even Mondrowitz’s attorney, Eitan Maoz, echoed this view after the extradition ruling. He told the Jewish Star, a Long Island weekly, “In 1988, the law was amended in a way that the route to extradition was open and the district attorney was notified. But they did not do anything until 2007, when they decided to apply.”

Hynes has said that since the crime occurred before the law changed, the extradition request could not be applied retroactively.

Now, child advocates are waiting to hear whether the government will appeal the extradition ruling, issued by a limited bench of three Supreme Court justices who heard the case. The government has 45 days to decide. A single judge will then decide whether to accept the appeal. If accepted, the case would go before an expanded Supreme Court panel.

Maoz, Mondrowitz’s lawyer, called the court’s ruling “a very brave decision… especially at this time when the request for extradition came from the U.S.” He declined to comment on other matters relating to Mondrowitz.

Contact Nathan Jeffay at jeffay@forward.com

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

The Jewish Week Reports

Mondrowitz May Have Been Treating Boys Long After Indictment

by Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week

With alleged Brooklyn child molester Avrohom Mondrowitz under house arrest until Jan. 24 following last week’s decision by the Israeli Supreme Court to deny his extradition to the U.S., new evidence has emerged that appears to indicate that Mondrowitz was treating adolescent boys in Israel as recently as 2006.

According to a document provided to The Jewish Week by New Jersey attorney Michael Lesher, and apparently obtained from Mondrowitz’s computer, Mondrowitz appears to have conducted an interview with and “assessment” of a 15-year-old boy who had been engaging in “improper behaviours [sic] with his peers.”

While the document contains the boy’s name, The Jewish Week is not publishing it to protect the identity of a minor.

It appears from the report, written as a letter and dated June 19, 2006, that Mondrowitz — who fled Brooklyn to Israel in late 1984 and was indicted on sodomy charges in 1985 — actually saw the teen in person, as opposed, for example, to having been sent a file for his review about the case. The boy is described in the letter as a “pleasant, neatly dressed, and polite 15-year-old.”

The assessment indicates that the boy was being seen by Mondrowitz in part regarding “normal hormonal and physical changes in his body.” It also notes that “Early adolescents may discover pleasurable self-stimulation. They form close friendships with peers and may experiment with them, or sometimes with somewhat younger peers, usually to satisfy curiosity. This quite normal experimentation phase usually fades and disappears.”

The lengthy report concludes with Mondrowitz suggesting that the boy “will appreciate and grow positively in Midos [positive characteristics] and Maasim Tovim” [good deeds] from “close interaction with a knowledgeable Mashgiach or other Torah-true guidance figure.”

The document indicates that the assessment was made at the request of the boy’s father and a Benyamin Rosenstein, whom, the documents make clear, is the father of Jerusalem City Councilman Shlomo Rosenstein, a member of the United Torah Judaism party.

The Jewish Week tried but was unable to reach Shlomo Rosenstein at his City Council office.
Mondrowitz’s name appears at the end of the assessment, followed by the credentials “Ph.D., L.N.H.A.” (Licensed Nursing Home Administrator), however there is no evidence he ever received a doctoral degree. Indeed, on a resumé obtained by The Jewish Week, Mondrowitz claimed to have earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1977 from “Teachers College, Colombia [sic] University.” A New York Police Department detective, now retired, is quoted in a 2007 article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz saying that all of his diplomas, including his rabbinic ordination, are “fakes.”

According to Lesher, an attorney in Passaic, N.J., author and advocate who represents several men allegedly sexually abused by Mondrowitz, “The new evidence we have suggests that Mondrowitz was serving as a psychologist in Israel, despite many assurances from rabbis over the years [to the contrary].
“That,” Lesher continued, “is a stunning contradiction of what we have been led to believe all these years.”

Other documents provided by Lesher seem to suggest that Mondrowitz had discussed plans for a project, referred to only as “AOL,” with someone named Mr. Myers. While it is unclear from the documents precisely what “AOL” is, the letter suggests it is an “endeavor” in some way related to “alternative therapeutic interventions that have assisted and greatly improved the situation and success of many children and their families.”

The letter is written on Mondrowitz’s letterhead, containing his current address and phone number in Jerusalem, and his name is preceded by “Dr.”

The Jewish Week also obtained an index of material found on Mondrowitz’s hard drive, information that was also provided to the chief superintendent of Israel’s division of computer crime, Avi Aviv, in early 2007. The index notes that the drive contained two graphic video clips. One of the clips features “two young boys sitting together on a bed and getting undressed”; another depicts two boys engaged in “graphic” sexual activity.

The index also lists dozens of URLs for pornographic Web sites, some involving what appear to be minors, visited by the computer. It also notes the existence of e-mails written from Mondrowitz’s e-mail address to customer support at sites that appear to feature child pornography asking why his access is being denied when he paid for access to the sites.

According to the index, there is also evidence that Mondrowitz used an iMule program, which is a site used to share illegal images. The index also lists items apparently related to the “Thornhill University,” a bogus university from which Mondrowitz allegedly issued degrees and credentials. (Thornhill, sometimes described as a “degree mill,” appears on several lists of universities that have no legal authority to issue degrees.) These included e-mail folders for the aliases of various Thornhill University “employees,” including its president, Theodore Thorton. The drive also contained logos from various universities, presumably used in the creation of fake diplomas.

Reached Monday at their Jerusalem home, Mondrowitz’s wife, Raizel, said that Mondrowitz was “unavailable.” But she emphatically denied that he had been treating boys in Israel, though she did say he “had been a psychologist in Brooklyn.”

“He hasn’t had anything to do with treating anyone in 25 years,” she said.

She also told The Jewish Week that the letters suggesting otherwise were “absolute lies” from “the same people who have been going after him for years.”

Mondrowitz and his family have professed his innocence since he fled to Israel in 1984. After he left the U.S., he was indicted in absentia on four counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree against four non-Jewish children in Brooklyn. (While Jewish children were among Mondrowitz’s alleged victims, they were not part of the grand jury that indicted him and thus not part of this case).


During his time in Brooklyn, Mondrowitz ran a child-counseling program out of his home and worked in a special-education school for boys that had connections to Ohel Children and Family Services. One of his alleged Jewish victims told The Jewish Week he was referred to Mondrowitz for counseling directly by Ohel. Several others made their way to him because he had a reputation within the community for being able to help “troubled” boys.

Prior to Mondrowitz’s arrest pursuant to an extradition request by the United States in late 2007 — and months after the Israeli authorities were alerted to Mondrowitz’s involvement in child pornography and the granting of bogus degrees — Israeli police found evidence of his involvement with films containing child pornography, according to court papers.

Mondrowitz has not been charged with any crimes in connection with these activities.
\
An e-mail to Aviv seeking comment on whether an arrest was planned was not returned. An e-mail to the spokesman for the Israeli State Attorney’s office was also not returned.

Recently, it came to light in a story on the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Web site, SignOnSanDiego.com, that a California Air Resources Board scientist from San Diego, Hien Tran, had bought a fake degree in applied statistics from Thornhill University.

According to Ben Hirsch, president of the advocacy group Survivors for Justice, “The Israeli government’s continued failure, thus far, to honor the Unites States’ request for the extradition of Avrohom Mondrowitz to face trial for the heinous crimes he was indicted for in 1984, raises troubling questions. That forced sodomy was legally not an extraditable offense in 1984 was a travesty then, and Israel’s failure to extradite Mondrowitz, now that the law in Israel has been corrected, is a travesty now.

“At the very least, the authorities in Israel should be pursuing criminal charges against Mondrowitz for recent crimes that both they and the U.S. authorities have clear and convincing evidence of. ... An indicted serial child rapist such as Mondrowitz has no place in any civilized society. He deserves to be judged by a Brooklyn jury for the unspeakable crimes he committed in Brooklyn.”

The new evidence about Mondrowitz’s actions since being indicted in 1985 comes after last week’s decision by the Israeli Supreme Court to deny what is the second extradition request made by the U.S. (An article on the ruling appeared last Wednesday on The Jewish Week Web site.)

Israeli state attorneys have until Jan. 24, 10 days after the court ruling, to decide whether to request an additional hearing.
\
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office expressed disappointment last Thursday after the ruling, which overturned a lower-court decision that Mondrowitz should be extradited to the U.S. for trial.

“We are disappointed by the decision,” said Jerry Schmetterer, director of public information for the DA’s office, which had been seeking Mondrowitz’s extradition. “We are working with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Israel Ministry of Justice to see what remedies are available.”

Asked to elaborate, Schmetterer told The Jewish Week the remedies “would possibly be in the area of further appeals.”

At the time Mondrowitz fled to Israel in 1984, the extradition treaty between Israel and the U.S. did not cover charges of sodomy, which was among the crimes for which he was indicted. The first extradition request regarding Mondrowitz came in 1985, but the appeal was denied. A new request was filed after the treaty was amended in 2007. Last Thursday’s decision was on Mondrowitz’s appeal of that request.
This article was posted on The Jewish Week Web site, www.thejewishweek.com, on Monday, Jan. 18.
===============================================================

Haaretz Reports

Last update - 06:35 20/01/2010

Accused child molester Mondrowitz wins first battle against extradition

By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent

For the more than two years he was in prison, Avrohom Mondrowitz prayed to God for his freedom.

Two weeks ago, a three-judge Supreme Court panel ruled to release him to house arrest, reversing an earlier Jerusalem District Court decision that the 62-year-old member of the Gur Hasidic sect would be extradited to the United States for the alleged molestation of more than 100 children and adolescents.

Born in Poland, Mondrowitz immigrated to Israel with his family after World War II. In the 1950s, he immigrated again, to Chicago.

By the 1980s he was living in Brooklyn, where he presented himself as a rabbi and psychologist, an expert in childhood and adolescent problems, even though he had no accreditation in the field.

In 2007, former patients of Mondrowitz and students at the yeshiva at which he taught described to Haaretz just what happened behind closed doors.

The parents of Mark Weiss, then 14 years old, came from Chicago to Brooklyn for treatment with Mondrowitz. Weiss had nowhere to sleep, and his self-styled therapist invited him into his home.

"My parents knew and trusted Mondrowitz," said Weiss, now 42. "His family was on vacation in the Catskills, and he came to pick me up at the airport. At first it was a lot of fun; he took me all over the place.

"At night he came into my bed and touched me. He did everything, including acts of sodomy. I was naive - I didn't understand exactly what was going on. I thought it was part of him being nice," Weiss recalled.

Today Weiss is active in Survivors for Justice, an organization created in the United States by victims of Mondrowitz.

In 1984, the New York Police Department collected testimony from Mondrowitz's victims and their parents in the ultra-Orthodox communities of Brooklyn.

Officers drafted a 13-part indictment including first-degree sodomy, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

Authorities in New York issued an arrest warrant, but when police came to detain him, Mondrowitz and his family had fled to Israel.

The U.S. Justice Department immediately issued an extradition request, but the extradition agreement between the United States and Israel did not include charges of sodomy, but only rape.

In Israel, Mondrowitz - married and the father of seven children - continued teaching in a yeshiva and counseling children. He is also suspected of having sold forged university degrees to anyone willing to pay.

Israel Police investigators have found significant material testifying to offenses both sexual and otherwise, including pedophile films and forged degrees from universities around the world.

Mondrowitz was first questioned by Israeli authorities in October 2007, then released to limited house arrest.

In January of that year, the Israel-U.S. extradition treaty was amended to include any offense that carries a sentence of one year or more.

The U.S. Justice Department immediately issued a new request for Mondrowitz's incarceration.

According to U.S. law, Mondrowitz's alleged offenses are not affected by a statute of limitations, given that the suspect fled to a foreign country.

Too much time has passed

One night in November 2007, Mondrowitz was seized at his home in Jerusalem's Nahlaot neighborhood and taken into custody, and a week later released to house arrest.

Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia wrote in the ruling that even if the alleged offenses had not exceeded the statute of limitations, Mondrowitz should not be extradited because the length of time passed since they allegedly occurred would make a fair trial impossible.

The court also ruled that Israel and the United States could have changed the extradition treaty long before they did, and even if it was amended in 2007, Mondrowitz was still entitled to the presumption of innocence.

In the coming days the State Prosecutor's Office will likely ask the Supreme Court to hold an additional hearing on Mondrowitz's case.

The New York-based president of Survivors for Justice, Ben Hirsch, said, "We won't rest and we won't be quiet until Mondrowitz is brought to a fair trial in Brooklyn, where he committed his criminal acts. How many children's lives will be ruined by that monster before the Israeli authorities decide to put an end to it? Should we understand from the Supreme Court's ruling that it is recommending that the U.S. government forcibly kidnap Mondrowitz to bring him to trial?"
==============================================================

The Jewish Star reports

Assessing blame, further options in notorious case

By Michael Orbach

Issue of January 22, 2010/ 7 Shvat 5770

Avrohom Mondrowitz will not be extradited to New York to be tried on multiple counts of child sexual abuse, Israel’s Supreme Court has decided. His attorney says the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office is to blame but even one of the DA’s harshest critics calls that “preposterous.”
Mondrowitz, a charismatic, self-styled rabbi who faked his psychology credentials, was indicted for sexually abusing several Brooklyn boys a month after he fled to Israel in 1984. He is widely suspected of molesting dozens of boys, many of whom, twenty years later, are still unwilling to come forward.

The case is more involved that that of a single individual accused of committing serious crimes. The social service agency Ohel has vigorously denied having referred clients to Mondrowitz for counseling; and leaders of the frum community, specifically the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, were thought to have warned him of his impending arrest.
Elizabeth Holtzman, Brooklyn’s district attorney at the time, sought Mondrowitz’s extradition. However, the charges against him were not extraditable under the treaty between Israel and the United States in force at the time. That changed in 1988, but the next district attorney, Charles Hynes, chose to not pursue the case until 2007 when the treaty changed again. Hynes has been accused of sitting on the case under pressure from the same Borough Park communal leaders. After a renewed interest in the case, extradition proceedings began in earnest in 2007. Mondrowitz appealed and in a decision issued by the Israeli Supreme Court on Jan. 14, his appeal was sustained.
“The delay in the appellant’s extradition process — currently measured at 23 years — which could have been prevented by an earlier amendment of the extradition agreement, places a legal and ethical obstacle before the completion of the extradition,” wrote Justice Ayala Procaccia.

Eitan Moaz, Mondrowitz’s lawyer, attributed the defense’s success to inaction by the district attorney.
“In 1988 the law was amended in a way that the route to extradition was open and the district attorney was notified,” he explained.” But they did not do anything until 2007, when they decided to apply.”

“I’m not saying it was his fault, it was his decision,” he added. “This case was buried under ground.”

Moaz praised the judge’s decision, calling it “brave,” especially in light of the relationship between the United States and Israel.

Hynes is currently also fighting a Freedom of Information Act request by attorney Michael Lesher, concerning the DA’s conduct in the Mondrowitz case. On Nov. 23, 2009, a judge ordered Hynes to turn over to Lesher all of the documents concerning the district attorney’s handling of Mondrowitz.

“If the District Attorney has been telling the truth about his role in the attempted Mondrowitz extradition, he has nothing to hide; if he has not been telling the truth, he has no right to hide,” Lesher wrote in his affidavit.

Reached by phone on the day of the Israeli Supreme Court decision, Lesher became Hynes’ unlikely defender.

“It’s preposterous to blame the DA for the fact that Israel and America simply did not negotiate a new extradition treaty fast enough. I don’t say that as a defender of Hynes — he did plenty to bury the case -— but it isn’t his fault that the extradition treaty didn’t change sooner.”

“It was the wrong decision and protects a man whose crimes extend … far beyond him,” he said about the decision. “If prosecuted it [the case] would reveal so much about the corrupt underside of the society he comes from. All we ever wanted was simply for him to come to trial like others accused of such crimes. If he did come to trial we would learn a lot of unpleasant things, but invaluable things. I think there were a lot of people who didn’t want that to happen.”

Lesher added that said he believed the court’s decision had been made for “political considerations.”

Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesperson for the DA said that they were “disappointed” by the Israeli decision.

“We’re working with the [U.S.] Department of Justice and the [Israeli] Ministry of Justice to see what remedies are available,” he said.

If there is any further recourse that could see Mondrowitz brought back to New York, it’s a long shot, at best, according to his attorney, Moaz, who believes that Israel’s Supreme Court would need to call a new session with a panel of seven judges.

The decision to set Mondrowitz free “raise[s] troubling questions,” according to Ben Hirsch, president of Survivors for Justice, an advocacy organization for victims of sexual abuse inside the Jewish community.

“We are working with counsel to determine what can be done to help bring Mondrowitz to the U.S. to face trial for the terrible crimes [of which] he stands accused. We are saddened that Mondrowitz’s victims have been deprived of this important step towards closure and we will not rest until every possible legal means to bring this matter to the close it deserves have been exhausted,” he said via email.

The question now becomes what will happen to Mondrowitz. He remains under house arrest after being moved from the prison where he spent the last two years.

He is set to go free on bail in ten days. Documents Michael Lesher provided to the Jewish Star indicate that as recently as 2006 Mondrowitz was actively counseling adolescents under the same false credentials he used in the United States 20 years ago.

In an evaluation of a boy named Eliyahu, who engaged in “improper behaviors with his peers,” Mondrowitz wrote that the boy’s experimentation was “normal.”
“They form close relationships with peers and may experiment with them, or sometimes with somewhat younger peers, usually to satisfy curiosity. This quite normal experimentation phase usually fades and disappears,” Mondrowitz wrote.

Eliyahu would “benefit” from close interaction with a knowledgeable mashgiach or other Torah-true guidance figure,” Mondrowitz recommended.

“An adult supporting figure could teach and encourage Eliyahu that, like hunger, thirst, or other basic needs, other desires must be controlled, channeled and satisfied in the proper time, place and manner.”

In another set of documents, a Jerusalem City Council member, Shlomo Rozenshtein, responded to Mondrowitz’s pitch to develop a “Spiritual Centre” near the Kotel, cc’ing then-Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski on the e-mail.

“The City of Jerusalem and the State of Israel have a deep interest in an idea as beautiful and challenging as your ‘Spiritual Centre,’” he wrote.

At the Mondrowitz residence in Jerusalem a woman who answered the phone wouldn’t put Mondrowitz on the phone to speak with a reporter.

“Sorry,” she said before hanging up.

For at least one of Mondrowitz’s alleged victims, his freedom and the judge’s verdict are frightening.

“It’s not about vengeance. It’s about getting him of the street. I think the world is a less safe place because he’s out and feels empowered,” said Mark Weiss. “It’s pitiful, is what it is. I think humanity has dropped the ball.”

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For more on Mondrowitz, just Google his name. You can also Visit Survivors For Justice.