The Awareness Center, Inc. (International Jewish Coaltion Against Sexual Assault): June 1984

Case of Richard Andron

(AKA: Rick J. Andron, Rick Andron)

Former Member, Boca Raton Synagogue - Boca Raton, FLKarate Instructor - Boca Raton, FLExecutive Director, American Committee for Shaare Zedek Hospital - Palm Beach and Brownard CountiesFormer Youth Volunteer, Yeshiva University - Washington Heights, NYNational Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY)New York University - College of Arts and Sciences

A civil suit was filed against Yeshiva University regarding several cases of sexual abuse that occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Andron, then in his thirties, was “allowed to roam the halls” of Y.U.’s high school dormitory, even though he had nothing to do with the school. The suit cites three men — a Y.U. college student and two Y.U. high school students — who say Andron invited them to stay over at his apartment where he attempted to touch or did touch their genitals.

Please note that the first rabbi at the Boca Raton Synagogue was Rabbi Mark Dratch, who is the son-in-law of Rabbi Norman Lamm.

If you or anyone you know have more information about Richard Andron or any other sex offender associated with Yeshiva University, please contact The Awareness Center.

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Table of Contents:

Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves whether the resources meet their own personal needs.

1984

XJews Live Disciplined Life (06/22/1984)

1985

The Faith Keepers (02/22/1985)

1991

Olson appoints Adron Executive director (11/12/1991)

1992

4 Jewish Leaders to receive awards dinner to honor their contributions (03/30/1992)
Radio show tries to stir air waves team gives voice to Jewish concerns (05/15/1992)

1996

Night of remembrance bombing makes for somber Purim celebration (03/05/1996)

2001

Boca Raton's Orthodox Revolution (07/01/2001)

2013

Lawsuit is answer to our pain, says plaintiff in Yeshiva University sex abuse case (07/09/2013)

Third Alleged Yeshiva U. Abuser Accused of Preying on Boys in Dorms and Apartment (07/12/2013)

Boca Raton Synagogue Demands Answers on Accused Y.U. Pedophile Richard Andron (07/18/2013)

Man Named in Y.U. Suit Lured Boys With Karate, Porn –– and Modern Orthodox Ties (07/18/2013)

Richard Andron: Boca Raton Synagogue alerts congregation about alleged sex abuse by a member (07/22/2013)

Boca Raton Shul, Rocked by Y.U. Scandal, Plans New Approach to Accused Abusers (07/25/2013)

Boca Raton Synagogue Member Booted After Allegations of Child Molesting in New York (07/25/2013)

Accused Y.U. Abuser in Florida Speaks to Local News (07/25/2013)

Also see:

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XJews Live Disciplined Life
By Pat Kingcade
Miami Herald - June 22, 1984

It is Saturday morning, the Jewish sabbath, and Nora Kalish walks to the Orthodox synagogue to worship.

She is not permitted to drive. She carries no money, only her prayer book. During the services, she and the other women worship behind a curtain, separated from the men in the congregation.

On this day Kalish, 70, will not cook or shop. If she wants to use electricity, she will use a pre-set timer.

Kalish keeps a kosher kitchen. She does not use the same pans, dishes and flatware to cook and serve meat dishes that she uses for dairy products.

"It is a disciplined religion," Kalish said. Its rules come both from the Bible and from rabbis' interpretations of biblical law throughout the ages.

Kalish is a member of Anshei Emuna Congregation, one of the three Orthodox Jewish congregations in Palm Beach County.

In two, Anshei Emuna and Aitz Chalom in West Palm Beach, both organized in 1974, the members are mostly retirees. Because they are not allowed to drive or ride on the Sabbath, both congregations meet in retirement villages, where members can walk to the temple.

Aitz Chalom meets at the clubhouse in Century Village. Anshei Emuna's synagogue is at Kings Point.

The third Orthodox congregation, Boca Raton Synagogue, was formed in September. Most of its members are young couples with children.

"We are very much a first in Boca Raton," said Riwella Bruk, who with her husband, Israel, helped organize the latest group.

"A group of us felt it was what we wanted," Bruk said. She and her family have worshiped at Anshei Emuna. "We wanted something with young families and young children."

The group, which has 30 families, meets at the Community Day School in Boca Raton on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. They have bought land in Boca del Mar and have hired 26-year-old Rabbi Mark Dratch, from Stanford, Conn. He will begin conducting services July 28.

As with the other orthodox congregations, members of Boca Raton Synagogue carefully selected the site for their shul.

"We chose Boca del Mar because a lot of people will be able to walk to the synagogue," Bruk said. "Some of our members will be buying homes there."

"Orthodox Jews make sure they are within walking distance of the synagogue when they look for a home," Kalish said. "We get many calls from out-of-town people who are moving to our area and they want to know how far away the synagogue is."

To younger Orthodox Jews, the segregation of men and women during services seems a greater concern than not being able to drive to temple.

"In modern times the no-mixed seating is the major obstacle," Bruk said. "But if you truly believe in the Orthodox, you overcome the obstacle. You accept it."

Louis Sacks, rabbi at Anshei Emuna, agrees.

"Those who are Orthodox know there are different rules for men and women. They know there is separation."

Dratch said that men, too, have become involved in the separation restriction.

"If a man and woman care, they find room in the system. The prayer service is only one aspect. Women find ways to get involved . . . in dual study programs, community activities and social action."

Bruk, who has four children -- ages 11 to 20 -- has been in Boca Raton four years. She was brought up as an Orthodox Jew in South Africa. Bruk thinks membership in the new congregation will soon reach 300. She has received inquiries from New York, Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

She believes there is a trend back to the Orthodox.

"It is on the rise. I think there is a trend not to compromise."

Dratch also believes there is a trend to the Orthodox.

"Orthodox Judaism is back to the roots. It is traditional," he said.

Kalish also has been an Orthodox Jew all her life.

"I feel very comfortable being Orthodox," she said.

"I like the idea of lighting the candles to usher in the Sabbath. I know when the Sabbath arrives I will be at peace. I will be serene. If I was anything else I'd be violating something."

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The Faith Keepers
Miami Herald - February 22, 1985
by Herald Staff

NAME: Rabbi Mark Dratch.

TEMPLE: Boca Raton Synagogue. Orthodox services at held on Saturday mornings at Verde Elementary School, 6590 Verde Trail, Boca Raton ... formed in 1984 ... 45 families.

GOOD WORKS: Involved with the Task Force on Jewish Alcohol and Drug Abuse for Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties ... belongs to several rabbinical associations ... is involved in building a new Orthodox congregation in Boca Raton ... "We are the only Orthodox congregation servicing young families in this area."

QUOTE: "Being a rabbi is a challenge. It is a challenge to teach and a challenge to become a community builder. This position in Boca (building a new Orthodox congregation) is especially appealing to me."

PERSONAL: Came to Boca Raton Synagogue in July from Agudath Sholom in Stamford, Conn ... educated at Yeshiva University in New York City ... has a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in education ... 26 years old ... married ... is an avid reader ... loves bicycling ... "I ride to meetings on my bike when I can"... spends time with his wife, "which is very important."

We're looking for Faith Keepers. If you know of an outstanding person who is active in his or her religious life and would like to recommend that person to be featured in The Faith Keepers, please write The Faith Keepers, c/o Pat Kingcade, The Miami Herald, P.O. Box 3623, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33402.

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Olson appoints Adron Executive director

Boca Raton News - November 12, 1991

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4 Jewish Leaders to receive awards dinner to honor their contributions
By Ken Swart
Sun Sentinel - March 30, 1992

PALM BEACH COUNTY –– Four influential members of the Jewish community in South Florida will be honored at a dinner this weekend in Boca Raton, organizers said.

The First Gala Awards Dinner will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Marriott hotel in Crocker Center, on Military Trail south of the Glades Road overpass, west of Interstate 95, Boca Raton.

The American Committee for Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem is sponsoring the dinner and distributing the awards. The committee is based in New York.

Tickets are $120 per person.

Officials will use the money raised from the dinner to pay for the hospital`s new fertility clinic, said William Rand, chairman of the committee that planned the event.

The awards and recipients:

-- Jewish Community Service Award -- Michael and Felice Friedson of Boca Raton, co-hosts of the radio talk show Jewish Horizons, which is broadcast on Sundays on WSBR-AM in Boca Raton. The show also can be heard on radio stations in New York and Baltimore.

The couple "have dedicated Jewish Horizons to outreach and Jewish education," committee spokesman Rick Andron said. "Through the (program), the valuable work of worthy Jewish organizations has become known to the Jewish community and beyond."

-- Keter Shem Tov Award -- Douglas Lazarus, vice president and general manager of Riverside-Gordon Memorial Chapels.

Lazarus helped design the firm`s one-of-a-kind Delray Beach chapel so that it could accommodate the needs of even the most strictly Orthodox of Jewish families. For example, a mezuza, or parchment, has been affixed to each doorway. And a mikvah, or ritual bath, has been installed in the room where bodies are prepared for burial.

"His care and dedication to the Jewish community is (shown) in his work with the Jewish National Fund and the South Broward (Jewish) Federation," Andron said of Lazarus.

-- Maimonides Award -- Dr. Kenneth B. Kassin, who opened a birthing center in downtown Fort Lauderdale last year.

The center "provides comprehensive prenatal through postpartum care for patients unable to meet the normal costs of child-bearing," Andron said.

During the dinner, Jewish dietary laws will be observed.

Dr. Jonathan Halevy, director general of the hospital, will speak.

For more information about the dinner, call 391-1805 or 1-305-531- 8329.

For more information about the hospital, call the committee at 1- 212-354-8801.

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Radio show tries to stir air waves team gives voice to Jewish concerns
By Ken Swart
Sun Sentinel - May 15, 1992

RELIGION CENTRAL AND SOUTH –– It`s 5:55 p.m. on a recent Sunday -- five minutes before Jewish Horizons, a live, two-hour weekly talk show, airs over WSBR-AM 740 in Boca Raton.

Show co-hosts Michael and Felice Friedson of Boca Raton react differently to the pressure. Felice Friedson, 30, who owns a public relations firm, FM Promotions, is frantic: "Michael, where`s the business report?" she asked. Meanwhile, Michael Friedson, 40, an attorney, is calm: "The last thing you do before you go on (live radio) is make sure you go to the bathroom," he advised.

Like most successful teams, Felice and Michael Friedson are a study in contrasts: Felice Friedson is thin. Angular. Serious. Michael Friedson is big. Round. Playful. But where it counts, they are the same. Both are Orthodox Jewish, pro-Israel, close to their families and devoted to their children. And to the radio program they created three years ago.

Jewish Horizons may still be a "toddler" and the Friedsons may still be novice "parents." But they are all growing up fast. "We`ve made tremendous progress," Michael Friedson said.

Consider:

-- WEVD-AM in New York and WCBM-AM in Baltimore recently began carrying the program. By the end of the month, the program is to be bounced off a satellite, making it more accessible. "We`ve caught on," Michael Friedson said. "It has a life of its own now." The couple broadcasted their show live from Jerusalem in October, and live from Washington, D.C., in March. Similar broadcasts are planned.

-- One of the couple`s guests in March was Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia Haim Divon, who helped with the massive, history making airlift of Ethiopian Jews.

Divon and his wife, Linda, even appeared on the show on their 21st wedding anniversary. "From my point of view, they do a tremendous job," Divon said. "This is a great service to the entire community, not just the Jewish community."

-- In April, the couple received the Jewish Community Service Award from the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem during the hospital`s first awards dinner in Boca Raton. "Felice and Michael have dedicated Jewish Horizons to outreach and Jewish education," said Rick Andron, a spokesman for New York-based American Committee for Shaare Zedek Hospital.

-- Students from Donna Klein Jewish Academy, who learned how to handle equipment and conduct interviews as part of the program`s Project Shofar segment, will tape their own talk show at 7 p.m. on May 27 in the cafeteria on the Siemens Jewish Campus west of Boca Raton.

"I learned a lot just by being on the program," said Arkady Schraybman, 12, of Boca Raton. "I learned how to speak and not be scared."

"They don`t rush us. They help us," said Adam Brood, 12, of Delray Beach. "If you need help, they`re there for you."

The couple recalled the program`s origins. "I did a small segment for a show on another station," Felice Friedson said.

"We wanted to do a similar program ourselves," Michael Friedson said.

It was his wife who contacted WSBR. "They took us out to lunch and asked us if we`d do a husband-and-wife format. I`d never even considered that," Michael Friedson said. "Felice said yes. I said no. Felice kicked me under the table."

The program fills a need, Michael Friedson said. "Nobody out there speaks for Israel," he said. "So this is very rewarding for us."

But not without its price. "We put so much into it, our kids do suffer," Felice Friedson said of their children, ages 12, 9 and 3. "We`re torn between them and the program. That`s the part we find very difficult. But we`re into this because we believe in it."

It`s 7:59 p.m. and the Friedsons are signing off. "Good night, Felice," Michael Friedson said. "Good night, Michael," Felice Friedson responded. "And good night for Jewish Horizons."

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Night of remembrance bombing makes for somber Purim celebration
By Sarah Ragland
Sun Sentinel - March 5, 1996

The story of Purim is a story of triumph over hatred and anti-Semitism.

But on Monday, the gaiety that normally marks this Jewish holiday was tinged with sorrow and anger at terrorists who have in the past 10 days killed 61 Israelis in four bombings.

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas took responsibility for the latest bombing outside Tel Aviv's central shopping mall on Monday. Thirteen bystanders, including four children, were killed, in addition to the suicide bomber.

Inside the mall, hundreds of children dressed in costumes were celebrating Purim, a joyous holiday that focuses on feasts, fun and costume parties.

In Palm Beach County, as children donned their holiday costumes and prepared for Monday night's festivities, local Jewish leaders planned a vigil for those killed in Israel.

The vigil will be on Wednesday night. A location has not been chosen.

"We are not going to let the terrorists take away the joy and pride of Jewish life," said Rabbi Merle Singer of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton. "But we are toning down our {Purim) services."

At Boca Raton Synagogue, where hundreds gathered on Monday night to celebrate Purim, Rabbi Kenneth Brander began with a tribute to the dozens of Israelis killed by bombers.

Candles for the dead in Israel were lit by young children as the rest of the congregation sang Ani Ma-Amin, a song of mourning.

Rick Andron, who is active in synagogue affairs, said there is a correlation between the story of Purim and the stories now on the nightly news.

The story of Purim is about a prime minister named Haman who ordered the assassination of all Jews. It is also, ultimately, a story of triumph over Haman and anti-Semitism

The persecution of Jews by Hamas now, Andron said, is the same as the persecution recounted in the story of Purim.

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Boca Raton's Orthodox Revolution

As Palm Beach County’s Jewish population grows, a new core of Orthodox Judaism forms at its center

BOCA Magazine - Sunday, July 1, 2001

Although their religious journey would take them less than five miles from their home in Horseshoe Acres to a parking lot south of Palmetto Park Road, the motor home was key. If they truly wanted to embrace an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle, they couldn’t drive to services on Saturday.

But instead of selling their house, uprooting their family and moving within walking distance of Boca Raton Synagogue, each Friday they loaded up their three youngest kids, some clothes and some food in the RV, and spent the weekend living in the synagogue’s asphalt parking lot off Montoya Circle in western Boca’s sprawling suburbia.

“My 19-year-old thinks we’re off our rockers,” Lisa Gladstone says of the reaction of her eldest son who was away at college when his parents had their religious awakening early last year.

But the scorn of her eldest child aside, Lisa Gladstone has one word for the experience: “It was wonderful.”

Welcome to the world of Orthodox Judaism Boca-style.

While other more established Orthodox communities are known for their rigid adherence to ancient conventions and lifestyles that seem to be throwbacks to a bygone age, the Boca Raton Orthodox community has gained a reputation nationwide for being on the cutting edge.

And although Rabbi Kenneth Brander isn’t encouraging his members to spend their weekends in the synagogue parking lot, if they do so to follow religious dictates that prohibit driving on the Sabbath, so be it.

The Dolly Parton-esque RV with the airbrushed dolphins adorning its sides and its whimsical SHABBUS license tag (a play on Shabbos, the Hebrew word for Sabbath) is symbolic of the way the synagogue has operated since it was founded 17 years ago. While other conservative religious groups often shun all but the most devout, the Boca Raton Synagogue welcomes all comers—no matter how they arrive or what level of religious training they have when they get there.

And the formula, if that’s what you call it, works. After all, it wasn’t those nights sleeping on a dining table that doubles as a bed that sold Gladstone on the synagogue. It was the community that surrounded it.

Because Orthodox Jews are also prohibited from cooking on the Sabbath and the RV was not equipped with warming trays or other necessities of modern-day Orthodox life, the Gladstones could have spent the entire Sabbath surviving solely on Fritos and other kosher snacks. Instead, even though they were newcomers, they were invited to people’s homes for every Sabbath meal. Likewise, her kids didn’t have to work to make friends. Youngsters from the synagogue embraced them—and their bus—wholeheartedly.

“Everyone was gaga over the bus,” says Gladstone, who didn’t pay much heed to her Jewish roots until her husband got excited about Orthodoxy about two years ago. But, she says, it was more than the blush of the bus that turned strangers into friends. “They were just so genuinely warm and welcoming.”

And those who live in the community say that’s why the synagogue is one of, if not the fastest-growing in the nation. It’s why housing prices in the neighborhoods off Montoya Circle have skyrocketed. And it’s why large chain stores, that once ignored pleas to stock more kosher goods, now call the synagogue asking what they have to do to be able to display the kosher symbol on their doors.

In the last 17 years, the synagogue that began with four families meeting in each other’s living rooms has mushroomed into a congregation of nearly 500 families with more activities than any one of them could possibly attend. On most days, services, educational programs, classes and social events fill the synagogue from sun up to sundown and beyond.

The growth of the synagogue, in a large part, is fueling the staggering growth of Palm Beach County’s Jewish population. Within the next decade, Palm Beach County will be home to more Jews than any other county in the state and will become one of the top five Jewish strongholds in the country, says Ira Sheskin, a University of Miami geography professor who has studied Jewish communities throughout the nation. With a population of 230,000, the county’s Jewish population already outstrips that of Miami-Dade County and, within the next several years, will eclipse Broward’s as well, he says.

“Palm Beach County will be the No. 1 county in Florida for Jews,” he says. “There’s no question.”

Those who have watched the congregation—both from up close and afar—say they aren’t completely surprised by the growth. “Everyone knew it would happen, the only question was when,” says Rabbi Mark Dratch, the synagogue’s first rabbi.

Still, he says, the synagogue is a far cry from the one he led in the mid-1980s, when a dozen or so families met in restaurants, school cafeterias and the clubhouses of area golf courses.

“Literally, we were the wandering Jews,” says Dratch, who left after two years to return to Connecticut where he is now senior rabbi of the synagogue where Sen. Joe Lieberman worships. Once the wandering stopped, the community took root and grew at an unprecedented rate.

A lot of the allure is simply Boca—the landscaping, the manicured lawns, the sunshine, the upwardly mobile lifestyle—the stuff that has attracted thousands of well-heeled gentiles, atheists and agnostics to the area as well. Like other areas of Boca, “The Circle,” as the area around the synagogue is called, is filled with doctors, lawyers, investment bankers and other professionals. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler calls the community home. And while not everyone who lives in one of about 750 homes on the circle are Orthodox Jews, the vast majority are.

“If you didn’t want to live near the synagogue, you’d have to be crazy to buy here,” says Esther Gomolin, who moved onto the circle last year. “The prices are completely out of whack with what you can get four miles away.”

But because she and her oncologist husband wanted to be within walking distance of the synagogue, they paid $400,000 for a house assessed at $222,888. Even at that inflated price, Gomolin figures she and her husband got a good deal. Months later, similar houses went for much more.

Some Orthodox Jews are so intent on living near the temple that they are paying inflated prices for homes, only to tear them down and build even bigger ones. The most eye-popping example is an estimated $1.5 million, 8,000-square-foot house recently built in Boca Hamlet. “The guy basically paid $650,000 for the privilege of knocking the house down,” says Mitchell Stiel, a real estate agent and former president of the synagogue.

But, those who live on the circle say people who pay inflated prices for houses near the synagogue are buying much more than a home. “They’re buying a lifestyle,” says Sue Andron, who followed Dratch to Boca and stayed after he headed back north.

To those who spend Friday nights going to ball games, movies or concerts, and Saturdays cramming as many errands as possible into one day, the idea of an Orthodox lifestyle seems unthinkable.

To Lorys Stiel, it’s nirvana. She scoffs when asked how she can give up her weekend to follow Orthodox tenets.

“Give up?” she nearly screams. For Stiel and other Orthodox Jews, it’s not a matter of what they give up; it’s what they get. “We’re all so busy doing the laundry, car-pooling, going to work, going to meetings, cooking, even opening the mail takes time,” she says. “But every week you know that at 5 o’clock on Friday night, everything stops. You can’t do anything.”

But before that magical hour, life can get somewhat chaotic.

At Andron’s house, an hour before sundown, she and her husband, Rick, rattle through a checklist. “Let’s see… paper towels, liquid soap? Anything else we need before Shabbos?” Rick Andron asks before grabbing the car keys and darting out the door.

Once back from a nearby Publix, he hands the roll of paper towels to the housekeepers who begin ripping the napkins apart and stacking them in piles. Religious law, Rick Andron explains, prohibits Orthodox Jews from ripping or cutting on the Sabbath. The liquid soap is needed because Jewish law prohibits the use of hard soap.

“You can’t change the status of things,” Sue Andron explains. You can’t cook because you can’t turn raw meat into cooked beef. You can’t boil water because you can’t make something cool, warm. You can’t switch on lamps because you can’t turn darkness into light. While some Orthodox Jews unscrew the light bulbs in their refrigerator on the Sabbath, years ago Sue Andron just decided to do without.

“I don’t even know what it’s like opening a refrigerator with a light on in it,” she says, opening her refrigerator, which is completely full and completely dark. Other lights in the house are set on timers.

Just before the appointed time, Rick and Sue Andron make one last check. She turns off the ovens and plugs in the warming trays she will use on Saturday to warm up the family’s lunch.

“Are all the lights set?” Rick asks.

“I think so,” she answers.

Then she turns to a long, narrow table in the living room, lights 15 candles—one for each of her four children, her husband and other important people in her life. She rocks gently back and forth, quietly saying a prayer. Then there’s silence.

“That’s it,” she smiles. “The world’s gone.”

It’s an unbelievable feeling, she says, knowing she has nothing to do for the next 24 hours other than talk with family and friends and go to shul.

“It’s like a snow day up north,” says Gladstone. “You can’t do anything even if you wanted to.”

Instead, Orthodox Jews spend Friday night and Saturday simply enjoying each other’s company. Meals can last two or three hours as people sit over their dinner plates and talk. Then, friends drop by and people chat some more. Kids play board games, do crossword puzzles, read, or shoot hoops.

“It’s like living in the ’50s,” says Lorys Stiel. “I just love it.”

But, the ritual that surrounds the Sabbath is only part of the allure of the Orthodox community. In many ways, the entire lifestyle has an Andy of Mayberry feel.

Take childbirth. When Batsheva Goldfischer gave birth to her second child two years ago, she didn’t have to cook for two weeks. People she barely knew appeared bearing baskets of food, carrying gifts or just stopping by to see the new baby.

Take sickness. When Leah Lauwick had open-heart surgery three years ago, meals were delivered to her house for weeks. Later, after she recovered and was called to Tennessee to care for an ill daughter, people called her husband to make sure he was OK and to invite him to Sabbath meals.

If word somehow gets out that she’s sick, she says her phone will ring. “And I’m not talking your best friend either,” the retired schoolteacher says. “People will ask how you’re doing and it’s not gossipy. People will say, ‘Well, my sister had what it sounds like you’ve got and she took this. Maybe it will help you.’”

Take hard times. When a family needs help simply putting food on the table, either because of job loss or some other crisis, help is provided—anonymously. Only a small committee of people knows the names of a family that receives help. Deliveries of food are made at night and simply left at the door to save the family the embarrassment of accepting charity.

Giving and receiving help is just part of being members of the community.

Still, even though Goldfischer and Lauwick lived in close-knit Orthodox communities in the Northeast, both say the outpouring of support from people on the circle is unusual. “My experience with other Orthodox communities is that they come together in times of crisis—in major happy times or sad times,” says Goldfischer, 28. “But Boca Raton happens to be extraordinary.”

And most credit that extraordinary atmosphere to Rabbi Brander.

“Everything that’s happened in Boca Raton is all because of Rabbi Brander,” Sue Andron says. “He took his dreams and made them reality. There’s absolutely nothing Rabbi Brander can’t do.”

As if that isn’t praise enough, Lorys Stiel takes it a step further. “He changed the map for South Florida.”

Nowhere is the result of Brander’s work more apparent than at shul on Saturday morning. By 9 a.m., three services are under way and three more will be held before the morning is over.

The atmosphere at the main service, where people gather to hear Brander preach, is far different than at a Christian service where people file in, sing and pray in unison, listen and leave. For starters, men and women are separated. Men, wearing yarmulkes and prayer shawls, sit in the main part of the sanctuary, while women sit on either side behind Plexiglas walls. The separation is so people devote all of their attention to God without having anything, sexual or otherwise, to distract them.

Further, the service begins slowly, almost haphazardly. A man sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the sanctuary leads the prayers. But rather than recite them in unison, the men around him say the prayers at their own pace. There is a constant rumbling of voices as prayers begin, end and continue without any noticeable breaks. There is a constant flow of men coming into the sanctuary and a quiet rustling as they put on their prayer shawls and take their seats.

Behind the Plexiglas walls, women follow along in their prayer books. All married women wear hats. All women, even young girls, wear dresses or skirts. None carry purses. They have no business to do. Since no money will change hands, no purses are needed.

By 10 a.m., the temple is full and the main part of the service begins.

Brander says he is as surprised as anyone by the staggering growth of the synagogue. When he arrived nine years ago, long before the main sanctuary was built, there were barely enough people to fill one small room—much less support six separate services. He was 28 years old, acting rabbi of a 1,600-member synagogue in New York City and ready to enter a doctoral program at New York University when he was asked to lead the synagogue that was then home to 60 families.

“I figured I’d come down, do some reading and writing I’d been wanting to do, spend two years here and then go back and get my Ph.D,” he says.

Today, he has no plans of moving anywhere, except possibly Israel. “I’m not interested in moving into any other pulpit within the American Jewish community,” he says.

Once on the job, he was swept up with all that needed to be done to create a vibrant Jewish community. There was a temple to be built, classes to schedule, kosher businesses to attract, schools to organize and members to seek.

Rather than establish just another South Florida Jewish retirement community, he wanted to create one that would attract young families as well as older people. “I decided I wanted to create an institution that would create gateways for people to relate with God whether they were 9 or 90,” he says.

To that end, his first priority was building a mikva, a ritual bath for women that is a cornerstone of the Orthodox faith. “The first day I was here, I hadn’t even unpacked my boxes, and I called a meeting to discuss building the mikva.”

Before resuming sexual relations with their husbands after their menstrual cycles, Orthodox women must take a bath in natural water. According to religious teachings, a couple is to abstain from sex during the week a woman is having her period and for a week after.

“The epicenter of the Jewish home is not the synagogue or the Jewish community center. It’s the home,” Brander says, explaining the importance of the mikva ritual. “We’re very committed to making sure the home is protected.”

Forcing couples to abstain from sex and talk to each other for two weeks a month is believed to strengthen marriages, he says. Studies have shown that the divorce rate is lower in homes where couples observe traditional mikva customs, he says.

Recognizing that devout Orthodox women in Boca had to travel to Miami or take dips in the ocean, Brander was committed to making a mikva reality. It took three years before the $300,000 bath, fed by rainwater, was complete.

Brander was equally committed to the establishment of Jewish schools in the area. When he arrived, the closest Hebrew school was in North Miami and the next closest one was in Atlanta.

Yeshiva High School opened in September 1998 on the grounds of the synagogue. Torah Academy, which is for preschool through sixth grade, opened last year on the grounds of Young Israel Synagogue, another, much smaller, Orthodox synagogue just north of Palmetto Park Road on Palmetto Circle.

The opening of the schools fueled the area’s popularity among young families. Some families, including the Androns, still send their children to the long-established Hebrew schools in North Miami Beach. Eventually, however, Brander is hoping children won’t have to make the hour-long trek. In fact, less than three years after Yeshiva High School opened, school officials are already planning to add a second floor and eventually increase the student population from 100 to 170.

But Brander has made sure education isn’t the sole province of the young. He established what is known as a kollel, a group of young rabbis who conduct classes for members of the synagogue and for the Jewish community in general.

In the meantime, Brander works with a committee to make sure kosher establishments are abiding by the strict standards and reviews applications from businesses that want to begin offering kosher food.

The entire package—from the synagogue, to the mikva, to the schools, to the religious education, to the availability of kosher food—is interrelated, Brander says. For an Orthodox community to thrive, all of the various components must be in place.

In some respects, it’s a matter of timing. During the years Dratch was rabbi at the synagogue, there weren’t enough people to support all the services that were needed. The lack of services, in turn, prevented more people from moving in. “Without the critical mass, it was difficult to provide all the services,” he says. “It was a Catch 22 for a good number of years.”

And Brander doesn’t kid himself. He understands critical mass. For instance, he knows the reason an ever-increasing number of businesses are offering kosher foods has nothing to do with some altruistic feeling toward the Orthodox Jewish community. “They do it because it increases their gross profits,” he says.

But he is pragmatic. What benefits the businesses helps the Orthodox community and vice versa. Take Albertson’s on State Road 7, which became the first supermarket in Boca to go kosher. Finally, Orthodox Jews can do the majority of their shopping at one store. And Albertson’s officials are equally pleased. “I inherited the goldmine,” says Newton Beaver, who became manager of the store after the home office decided it would go kosher.

While not surprised by the growth, Andron says she sometimes is surprised by how far the community has come. Recently, a colleague at the North Miami Hebrew school where she works asked her to stop by Albertson’s and pick up some baked goods for her. After spending years schlepping to Miami to buy kosher food, the significance of the request wasn’t lost on Andron. “The tables have really turned,” she says with a laugh.

As for the Gladstones and their RV, times have also changed. The SHABBUS is now one of the many pieces of the Boca Raton Synagogue’s already storied past.

Late last year, the Gladstones parked the bus in their driveway and bought a house within walking distance of the synagogue. The time had come to make the commitment, Gladstone says.

But the family doesn’t live on the circle full-time. They only use their new house for the Sabbath, and spend the week in their house in Horseshoe Acres.

And as unusual as it might be to have one house for Saturday and one for regular wear, the Gladstones aren’t unique. They are among a half-dozen or so families that own what members of the congregation call “Shabbos houses”—ones that are for Friday evenings and Saturdays.

Two houses? Five miles away from each other?

Don’t forget, it’s still Boca, where even the Orthodox are unorthodox.

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Lawsuit is answer to our pain, says plaintiff in Yeshiva University sex abuse case
The Forward - July 9, 2013

YU buried this because of money, another plaintiff tells The Forward, referring to a $250,000 donation accepted by then-YU President Norman Lamm.

Nineteen former students of a Manhattan high school run by Yeshiva University have filed a $380 million lawsuit against Yeshiva University accusing administrators and teachers of covering up decades of physical and sexual abuse.

The lawsuit, filed July 8 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., alleges a “massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of [high school] students…facilitated, for several decades, by various prominent YU and [high school] administrators, trustees, directors, and other faculty members.”

The assaults are alleged to have taken place during the 1970s and 1980s, at a time when YU faced severe financial problems.

In New York, criminal and civil cases of child sexual abuse must be brought before a victim’s 23rd birthday. However, Kevin Mulhearn, a lawyer representing the victims, argues in the suit that the statute of limitations does not apply because YU fraudulently covered up the abuse.

“I am proud to represent these 19 men. They are entitled to the respect, dignity and justice which was denied to them when they were children,” Mulhearn said. “We are looking forward to prosecuting these claims.”

One of the plaintiffs, Barry Singer of New York, told the Forward: “It was necessary to file the suit because there was no proper response from Yeshiva University to any of our claims and to any of our pain.

“They just wouldn’t listen,” he added.

Singer said of his decision to reveal his name in the lawsuit: “I don’t have anything to hide. The only power in what has been for 40 years a horribly powerless situation is that I can stand up for myself.”

Yeshiva University said in a statement that it would not comment on ongoing litigation.

The suit claims that YU administrators engaged in a prolonged fraud by portraying two of the principal molesters as trustworthy men of exemplary character, despite multiple warnings that the men sexually abused boys. Both men were honored by YU after they left the school and, until recently, YU awarded scholarships in each of their names.

Mulhearn alleges that Yeshiva University’s former students had no way of knowing that others had been similarly abused or that the Yeshiva University had failed to heed multiple complaints of the abuse until the revelations were first published in the Forward, in December 2012.

The two men, Rabbi George Finkelstein, a high school administrator who rose to principal, and Rabbi Macy Gordon, a Talmud teacher, “had a propensity to sexually abuse children” yet they were allowed to remain on staff, the suit alleges.

Finkelstein, the suit says, groped students’ genitals while checking to see if they were wearing tzitzit. He also rubbed his erect penis against students under the guise of wrestling bouts at his Manhattan home and in a school office and a dormitory.

Gordon is alleged to have sexually abused one student. He is alleged to have sodomized a second student with a toothbrush. The second assault was reported to a senior Yeshiva University administrator but Gordon was allowed to remain in his post. Months later, according to the suit, Gordon sexually abused a third student.

Yeshiva University “has to be held accountable and people have to know everything that happened,” Gordon’s first alleged victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Forward.

Gordon’s second alleged victim, who also wishes to remain anonymous, told the Forward: “This was always about money, that’s why they buried this in the first place.”

Referring to a $250,000 donation that YU accepted in 2002 for the scholarship in Gordon’s name, the former student said: “That’s why even though [YU President Norman Lamm] knew about Macy Gordon, that’s why he took the $250,000.”

The suit also alleges that Richard Andron, a former YU student now believed to be living in Boca Raton, Fla., was allowed to visit the high school dormitory even though staff knew he was a threat to children. Two former high school students say Andron abused them after befriending them in the dormitory.

The abuse took a terrible toll on students, according to the lawsuit. Many have suffered from depression, anxiety, nightmares, flashbacks, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual addiction, emotional distress, broken marriages, and problems holding down a job. Some have spent years in counseling and on medication.

Several former students contemplated or attempted suicide shortly after they were abused or after attempts to alert Yeshiva University were ignored. One victim said the abuse made him fear having children of his own, the lawsuit contends.

Many former YU administrators and staff are named in the suit, including Rabbi Lamm, who was president of Yeshiva University from 1976 to 2003. Lamm resigned as YU chancellor on July 1. In a letter announcing his resignation, Lamm acknowledged making mistakes in his handling of abuse allegations when he led Yeshiva University.

Rabbi Robert Hirt, a former vice president of Yeshiva University’s theological seminary, which has oversight of operations at Yeshiva University’s high school, is also named. The suit also targets as yet unidentified board members of Yeshiva University and of Yeshiva University’s high school during the period the suit covers.

Mordechai Twersky, of Israel, and Singer are the only victims named in the lawsuit. Others are listed anonymously. Twersky, who first brought the allegations of abuse at Yeshiva University to light, declined to comment on the suit. “I would like to let the complaint speak for itself,” Twersky said.

Although overcoming New York’s statute of limitations is difficult, Mulhearn has been successful once before. He used a similar legal strategy to win an undisclosed settlement on behalf of 12 men who were sexually abused decades ago by Phil Foglietta, a football coach at the elite Poly Prep Country Day School, in Brooklyn.

Finkelstein and Gordon continued to work in Israel until the Forward’s stories were published. Reached by the Forward in December, both men denied any wrongdoing.

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Third Alleged Yeshiva U. Abuser Accused of Preying on Boys in Dorms and Apartment

Karate Guru Richard Andron Found Haven in Boca Raton

By Paul Berger

Forward - July l2, 2013

Boca Raton’s Jewish community is reeling after Richard Andron emerged as the latest alleged abuser in a widening sex abuse scandal tied to Yeshiva University.

Until now, only Rabbis George Finkelstein and Macy Gordon, both former staff members of Y.U.’s Manhattan high school for boys, have been named in a series of articles in the Forward.

Now, Andron, 67, a former youth volunteer who now lives in Florida, has been accused of abuse, along with Finkelstein and Gordon, in a lawsuit filed July 8 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y. by 19 former high school students.

The suit alleges that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Andron, then in his thirties, was “allowed to roam the halls” of Y.U.’s high school dormitory, even though he had nothing to do with the school. The suit cites three men — a Y.U. college student and two Y.U. high school students — who say Andron invited them to stay over at his apartment where he attempted to touch or did touch their genitals.

The suit alleges that Y.U. staff either knew, or ought to have known, that Andron was a threat to children, but they allowed him access to boys anyway.

The Boca Raton Synagogue, where Andron has been a member for decades, sent an email to congregants July 9 telling them that the “the accused person had withdrawn his membership at BRS and agreed not to come to the BRS campus, or attend any BRS event in the future, whether on or off campus.

“Be advised that there have been no allegations we are aware of that any improper conduct occurred within the past thirty years, or in our community.”

Andron’s case cuts broadly across the Modern Orthodox community. According to several interviews conducted by the Forward, Andron was also heavily involved with the Modern Orthodox youth organization, the National Council of Synagogue Youth. The Forward has spoken to two men who are not involved with the Y.U. lawsuit, who say that they were abused by Andron after meeting him through NCSY, the international youth movement of the Orthodox Union.

One of those men told the Forward that he warned NCSY about Andron during the late 1970s, but the man whom he made the report to, the group’s regional director, Baruch Lanner, did not report Andron to police or impede Andron’s access to boys. (Decades later, Lanner was embroiled in a scandal of his own after being accused of sex abuse and child endangerment of two girls. In 2002, he was sentenced to a seven-year prison term.)

Dave Raben, a Miami attorney who specializes in criminal defense and who identified himself as representing Andron, did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations against Andron.

According to several interviews with men who were youths at the time, Andron was a regular at teen events in the Modern Orthodox community during the 1970s and early 1980s. Andron was particularly well known as a practitioner of tora dojo, a Jewish-inspired twist on karate that was created and developed at Y.U.

A man has told the Forward that between the ages of 13 and 16 he often stayed at Andron’s apartment on the Upper West Side, so that he could be closer to a local tora dojo class. During that three-year period, the man said he was regularly abused by Andron, who was then about 30 years old.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that during the early months he stayed at Andron’s apartment, Andron would touch the boy’s penis while he was asleep. During the months that followed, Andron convinced the boy to watch him masturbate and to let him demonstrate on the boy how to masturbate.

“I told him this was not really right,” the man, who is now 50, recalled, “and [Andron] would convince me this was what I had to do to have a healthy relationship with women.”

When the boy finally realized, at the age of 16, that he had been abused, he told his parents. He said they instructed him to confront Andron, alone, and that since Andron was a martial arts expert he should do so in a Manhattan synagogue.

“I said, ‘What about going to the police?’” the man recalled. “[My parents] said, ‘No, no, no, we are not going to the police.’”

One December, during the late 1970s, he confronted Andron. “I said, ‘You abused me, you sexually assaulted me and you are a child molester and I don’t want you coming near me and my family,’” the man said.

He continued: “[Andron] got angry, like a jilted lover. I said, ‘If you come near me again and touch me again, I will kill you, so don’t even think about coming near me.’”

The boys’ parents told him he also had to warn Lanner, the NCSY regional director, about Andron. At the time, Lanner was infamous among Modern Orthodox youth for his habit of kneeing boys in the crotch and for taking teenage girls for long Sabbath walks in the woods.

The man said he described in detail to Lanner what had happened to him but that Lanner did not remove Andron from his involvement with NCSY.

An Orthodox Union spokesman, Mayer Fertig, confirmed that Andron was involved in NCSY “to the best of our knowledge in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.”

Fertig said that NCSY “today is altogether different from the one of that era” and that “difficult, painful lessons” from that period had been learned. He directed the Forward to a 14-page Conduct, Policy and Behavioral Standards Manual which pledges that “NCSY’s commitment to the physical, psychological, and emotional well-being of all NCSY professionals, volunteers, and NCSY’ers is non-negotiable.”

“NCSY and the Orthodox Union stand by those words and today go to great effort to enforce a policy of zero tolerance for any inappropriate activity,” Fertig said.

Several months ago, the Forward attempted to reach Lanner at his home in New Jersey to ask about Andron. Lanner’s (second) wife, Sarah, said that because of a “serious medical condition he cannot comment or have discussions at this time.” A subsequent attempt to reach Lanner was unsuccessful.

Another man who met Andron through NCSY said Andron often had groups of boys over to his apartment. He said Andron would take them to a pornographic bakery, in Manhattan, that sold baked goods in the shape of genitalia.

“My parents would never let me go to his house because they were concerned” that a single man would hang out so often with boys, the man, now 48, said. But because Andron showed boys such a good time, he begged his parents to let him go to Andron’s home.

One New Year’s Eve, during the late 1970s, he said his parents relented and he and a handful of boys spent the night at Andron’s one-bedroom apartment. At the end of the night, Andron asked which of the boys would like to sleep in one of two twin beds in his bedroom.

“I said, ‘I’ll sleep on the bed,’” the man recalled. “And one other guy said something…[that] insinuated, ‘You are in for it,’”

The man, who is now a physician, said he realized that something bad was about to happen to him, but it seemed too late to back out. He said that the following morning Andron locked the bedroom door, approached the boy’s bed and offered to show him a technique that would help him stop laughing if he was tickled.

“He proceeds to stroke my stomach, but they were long strokes, so his arm was stroking my genitals, trying to give me an erection,” the man said. “I just wanted it all to be over and, eventually, [it] was over and that was it.” He said that he did not inform his parents about what happened.

Andron is named in the multi-party lawsuit against Y.U. because former students say they believe Y.U. staff ought to have known he posed a threat.

The suit says that Andron was a “personal friend” of Finkelstein, an administrator at Y.U.’s high school. Andron “frequently notified Finkelstein that boys who had slept over at Andron’s apartment would be late or absent for classes at [the school],” the suit says. “Finkelstein thus knew, excused, condoned, and facilitated Andron’s sexual abuse of numerous [high school] students.”

One of the high school students who says that he was abused by Andron and who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, told the Forward that Andron “would sit with [the boys] and talk to them. I didn’t think it was too weird because I was a kid and he befriended me.”

The man, who is now 45 and living in Tel Aviv, said Andron invited him to stay over at Andron’s apartment one Sabbath around 1983. When the high school student arrived, he said Andron showed him into a bedroom and gave him a stack of Playboy magazines.

After leaving the boy alone for a while, Andron returned to the room and proceeded to touch the boy’s penis, according to the former student. “This was really my first sexual experience of skin to skin contact,” the man said. “This has stayed with me for years.”

The suit also alleges that Richard Ehrlich and Elan Adler, described as “senior residence hall officials” at Y.U., knew that Andron visited the dormitory and entered boys’ dorm rooms.

Adler, a director of Y.U.’s school dormitory from 1981 to 1986, told the Forward in an email several months ago that he recalled Andron’s name but not his face. Adler said there “was simply no way of restricting access to the high school dormitory.”

He added: “In terms of Ricky, it didn’t seem suspicious for him or anyone to come and visit any of the boys. Sometimes kids had visitors from their home neighborhoods who were on campus who took the boys for dinner or a movie, there were no red flags.”

Adler also said that “any expectation on my part or that of any of the counselors was unrealistic, given that the building had no security, no guard, no access code….. It was unreasonable to expect that we could have monitored who was coming in. There was simply no way to do that.”

Ehrlich did not respond to several requests for a response, July 11.

Andron moved to Florida during the mid 1980s. In 1986, he told the Palm Beach Post that he left New York because his boss at a “major oil company” where he worked would not allow him to leave early on Fridays for the Sabbath. By now, Andron had a wife, Sue.

The Androns were among the earliest families to build up the Boca Raton Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation that today has more than 700 families.

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Boca Raton Synagogue Demands Answers on Accused Y.U. Pedophile Richard Andron

What Did Rabbis Know and When Did They Know It?

By Paul Berger

Forward - July 18, 2013

Rabbi Kenneth Brandler

Some congregants at a synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla., are asking whether current or former rabbis knew of the allegations that followed accused pedophile Richard Andron to their community.

“The rabbi needs to explain to all of us, how and why this situation occurred and what will be done in the future to (ensure) that this kind of neglect does not happen again,” one angry congregant, Irv, wrote on the Frum Follies blog.

Efrem Goldberg, senior rabbi of Boca Raton Synagogue, did not respond to several requests for comment.

But two men have told the Forward that they tried to warn Goldberg’s predecessor, Kenneth Brander, about Andron. Brander led the Boca Raton congregation from 1991 until 2005, when he took a post as dean of Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future.

One man who said that he was molested by Andron for three years told the Forward that he called Brander during the early 1990s.

“I told [Brander], he’s definitely a pedophile,” the man said, referring to Andron. “[Brander said] he would look into it, and he never called me back.”

Another man said he tried to warn Brander about Andron a little more than a decade ago.

The man said he tried to call Brander “four or five times,” but Brander did not respond. So the man said he “had to leave a very uncomfortable message” with someone in the Boca Raton Synagogue office. Later, a “third party” from the synagogue contacted the man to say that the allegations against Andron were “rumors” and that “in any case, it’s behind him,” the man said.

The synagogue, where Andron has been a member for decades, sent an email to congregants on July 9 — one day after a lawsuit was filed naming Andron as an alleged molester — telling them that the “the accused person had withdrawn his membership at BRS and agreed not to come to the BRS campus, or attend any BRS event in the future, whether on or off campus.

“Be advised that there have been no allegations we are aware of that any improper conduct occurred within the past 30 years, or in our community” the email read.

Yeshiva University promoted Brander to vice president for university and community life at the end of June. He did not respond to several requests for comment.

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Man Named in Y.U. Suit Lured Boys With Karate, Porn –– and Modern Orthodox Ties
Richard Andron Hosted Teen Sleepovers at West Side Pad
By Paul Berger
Forward - July 18, 2013

Accused: Richard Andron, right, taught tora dojo, a Jewish-inspired form of martial arts, at a Manhattan Jewish center in the 1970s and early 80s. Alleged victims say he molested them at sleepovers at his apartment.

To the Orthodox boys of Englewood, N.J., and Monsey, N.Y., Richard “Ricky” Andron was unbelievably cool: a 30-something bachelor and martial arts expert who hosted Sabbath sleepovers at his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where they played cards and looked at pornographic magazines.

But Andron’s apartment, just off Central Park, was a trap, according to interviews with about a dozen men who say they were abused or know people who were abused by Andron during the late 1970s and early ’80s.

“He manhandled me below the waist and caused me to have my first (sexual) experience,” said one of the men to step forward, who requested anonymity. “I was a 13-year-old and I had an experience that was not something a 13-year-old boy should experience from another man.”

Another man, who woke in the night to find Andron “fiddling below the sheets,” said: “He was the perfect pedophile. He had you doing things you knew you should not be doing, in terms of magazines and [going to see] R-rated movies, so it made it awkward for any victim to volunteer information.”

Dave Raben, a Miami attorney who specializes in criminal defense and who identified himself as representing Andron, declined to comment.

Andron, 67, first came to public attention when he was named in a high-profile lawsuit filed July 8 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., by 19 former students at Yeshiva University High School for Boys, in Manhattan. The suit accuses Y.U. administrators and teachers of covering up decades of physical and sexual abuse. The abuse allegations are principally against two former Y.U. high school employees, Rabbi George Finkelstein and Rabbi Macy Gordon.

But the suit also alleges that Andron was “allowed to roam the halls” of the high school dormitory during the late 1970s and early ’80s even though he had nothing to do with the school. It cites three men — a Y.U. college student and two Y.U. high school students — who say Andron invited them to stay at his apartment, where he attempted to touch or did touch their genitals.

When asked for a response, Y.U. said it could not comment on pending litigation.

Seven more men have independently told the Forward that they were abused by Andron.

Andron’s orbit extended beyond Y.U. He sometimes helped his brother, Michael Andron, teach classes in tora dojo, a Jewish twist on karate, at the Jewish Center, in Manhattan. And he was a regular volunteer in the New York and New Jersey area with the Modern Orthodox youth organization the National Council of Synagogue Youth.

Andron met and befriended many of the boys through NCSY.

One of those men told the Forward that he warned NCSY about Andron during the late 1970s, but the group’s regional director, Baruch Lanner, did not report Andron to police or impede Andron’s access to boys. (Decades later, Lanner was embroiled in a scandal of his own after being accused of sex abuse and child endangerment of two girls. In 2002, he was sentenced to a seven-year prison term.)

The man said that between the ages of 13 and 16 he often stayed at Andron’s apartment so that he could be closer to a local tora dojo class. During that three-year period, the man said that Andron abused him regularly.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that during the early months that he stayed at Andron’s apartment, Andron would touch the boy’s penis while he was asleep. During the months that followed, Andron convinced the boy to watch him masturbate and to let him demonstrate on the boy how to masturbate.

“I told him this was not really right,” the man, who is now 50, recalled, “and [Andron] would convince me this was what I had to do to have a healthy relationship with women.”

“I said, ‘What about going to the police?’” the man recalled. “[My parents] said, ‘No, no, no, we are not going to the police.’”

He continued: “[Andron] got angry, like a jilted lover. I said, ‘If you come near me again and touch me again, I will kill you, so don’t even think about coming near me.’”

The boy’s parents told him he also had to warn Lanner, who was the NCSY regional director about Andron. At the time, Lanner was infamous among Modern Orthodox youth for his habit of kneeing boys in the crotch and for taking teenage girls for long Sabbath walks in the woods.

The man said he described in detail to Lanner what had happened to him, but Lanner did not remove Andron from his involvement with NCSY.

An Orthodox Union spokesman, Mayer Fertig, confirmed that Andron was involved in NCSY “to the best of our knowledge in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

Fertig said that NCSY “today is altogether different from the one of that era” and that “difficult, painful lessons” from that period had been learned. He directed the Forward to a 14-page Conduct, Policy, and Behavioral Standards Manual, which pledges that “NCSY’s commitment to the physical, psychological, and emotional well-being of all NCSY professionals, volunteers, and NCSY’ers is non-negotiable.”

“NCSY and the Orthodox Union stand by those words and today go to great effort to enforce a policy of zero tolerance for any inappropriate activity,” Fertig said.

Several months ago, the Forward attempted to reach Lanner at his home in New Jersey to ask about Andron. Lanner’s wife, Sarah, said that because of a “serious medical condition he cannot comment or have discussions at this time.” Subsequent attempts to reach Lanner have been unsuccessful.

On July 16, another man, who said he was abused around 1983 and 1984, told the Forward that NCSY was aware of Andron’s problem.

The man said that he was abused by Andron twice when Andron slept over at his home during late 1983 and early 1984.

The man, then age 14, said he was too afraid and ashamed to tell his parents what happened. But a few months later, after his parents told him that Andron would be sleeping at the house again, the boy confided in school friends. They, in turn, told the head of the yeshiva, who called the boy’s mother.

The man, now 43, said that he pleaded with his parents not to press charges. Instead, his mother called every family that was friendly with or had hosted Andron to warn them about him.

The man said his mother also spoke to an official at NCSY who told her that Andron was receiving counseling for his problem. His mother was assured that Andron would never be associated with NCSY again, the man added. He believes that it was this last episode, in 1984, that forced Andron to leave New York for Florida, where he has lived ever since.

The man said that he regretted not pressing charges. “I wish at the time I was stronger,” he said. “But I was a 14-year-old kid who was abused. I regret it, but I think my parents made the right decision in light of my state of mind at the time.”

Andron is named in the multiparty lawsuit against Y.U. because former students say they believe Y.U. staff ought to have known he posed a threat.

The suit says that Andron was a “personal friend” of Finkelstein, an administrator at Y.U.’s high school. Andron “frequently notified Finkelstein that boys who had slept over at Andron’s apartment would be late or absent for classes at [the school],” the suit says. “Finkelstein thus knew, excused, condoned and facilitated Andron’s sexual abuse of numerous [high school] students.”

One of the high school students who said that he was abused by Andron and who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit told the Forward that Andron “would sit with [the boys] and talk to them. I didn’t think it was too weird, because I was a kid and he befriended me.”

The man, who is now 45 and living in Tel Aviv, said Andron invited him to stay over at Andron’s apartment one Sabbath around 1983. He said that when he arrived, Andron showed him into a bedroom and gave him a stack of Playboy magazines.

After leaving the boy alone for a while, Andron returned to the room and proceeded to touch the boy’s penis, according to the former student. “This was really my first sexual experience of skin-to-skin contact,” the man said. “This has stayed with me for years.”

The suit also alleges that Richard Ehrlich and Elan Adler, described as “senior residence hall officials” at Y.U., knew that Andron visited the dormitory and entered boys’ dorm rooms.

Adler also said that “any expectation on my part or that of any of the counselors was unrealistic, given that the building had no security, no guard, no access code…. It was unreasonable to expect that we could have monitored who was coming in. There was simply no way to do that.”

Ehrlich did not respond to several requests for a response.

Andron moved to Florida during the mid 1980s. In 1986 he told the Palm Beach Post that he left New York because his boss at a “major oil company” where he worked would not allow him to leave early on Fridays for the Sabbath. By then, Andron had a wife, Sue.

The Androns were among the earliest families to build up the Boca Raton Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation that today has more than 700 families.

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Richard Andron: Boca Raton Synagogue alerts congregation about alleged sex abuse by a member
By Marissa Bagg
NBC-News Channel 5 - July 22, 2013

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Members of the Boca Raton Synagogue remain on edge as a longtime member of their congregation was named in a sex abuse lawsuit.

19 former students of the Yeshiva University school in New York City claim they were repeatedly abused by two rabbis and a youth volunteer in the 1970's and 1980's.

Eyal Cohen

"He's a good person, he does good things in the community, but you never know," said Boca Raton Synagogue member Eyal Cohen.

The lawsuit alleges Richard Andron molested high school students while working as a volunteer at the school in Manhattan.

Andron briefly spoke with NewsChannel 5 off-camera at his Boca Raton home Monday about the allegations. He said he was cooperating with the investigation but had no other comment.

Andron was a 30-year member of the local synagogue until earlier this month. In a letter dated July 9, the Executive Board of the congregation emailed members saying "the accused person had withdrawn his membership" and "agreed not to come to campus or attend any synagogue events in the future."

"This is a community with lots of kids and in a situation like this we need to act and I think that was the right decision to make," said Cohen.

There have been no other reports of sexual abuse involving Andron since he moved to Boca Raton. But those living closest to him remain uneasy.

The civil lawsuit against the Hebrew school in New York alleges administrators didn't do enough to protect the former students against the suspected abusers.

Since the abuse allegedly happened more than 30 years ago, it is well passed the statute of limitations for a criminal case according to New York state law.

An investigation by the Jewish Daily Forward initially revealed the sex abuse allegations involving Richard Andron, and alleged cover-up by Yeshiva University administrators.

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Boca Raton Synagogue Member Booted After Allegations of Child Molesting in New York

Written by Josh Repp

CBS12 News - July 25, 2013

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

Richard Andron - alleged sex offender

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Only CBS12 confronts the man accused of molesting boys.

Richard Andron, a longtime member of the Boca Raton Synagogue, is no longer attending the Shul near Palmetto Park Road after the allegations surfaced.

A class-action lawsuit was filed in New York by students of Yeshiva University in Manhattan. The suit accuses Andron and two other men of a laundry list of pedophilic actions, including luring his alleged victims with karate and pornography.

The suit adds many Andron and two other men took part in lewd acts on students inside Yeshiva University dorm rooms.

A CBS 12 news crew spoke to Andron at his Boca Raton home, Adron declined to comment before consulting with his attorney.

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Boca Raton Shul, Rocked by Y.U. Scandal, Plans New Approach to Accused Abusers
Longtime Member Richard Andron Named in Lawsuit
By Paul Berger
Forward - July 24, 2013

A Florida synagogue rocked by allegations that a long-time congregant abused boys decades ago in New York is set to reexamine how it deals with members accused of abuse.

Rabbi Efrem Goldberg told congregants of the Boca Raton Synagogue in a July 24 email: “The last few weeks have been extremely challenging as our community has been featured in media reports and blogs, often containing speculation and misinformation.

“I am confident that with an accurate understanding of the facts, timeline and decision making process of our leadership, you will recognize that the Executive Board and I have acted in the best interest of our community and our members.”

Richard Andron, a longtime member of the Boca Raton Synagogue, was named in a high-profile lawsuit filed July 8 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y. Andron is one of three men accused of abuse by former students of Yeshiva University High School for Boys, in Manhattan.

Dave Raben, a Miami attorney who specializes in criminal defense and who identified himself as representing Andron, declined to comment about the allegations.

Some angry Boca Raton congregants want to know whether Goldberg, his predecessors or board members were aware of the allegations against Andron before they became public.

Goldberg has not responded to several interview requests from the Forward. However, in his email to congregants, he offered to “discuss issues that may be on your mind or to clarify questions that may be troubling you.”

Goldberg added that at a recent meeting of the synagogue’s board of directors, a special committee had been appointed “tasked with evaluating our protocols and procedures regarding issues of safety and security for our members as well as regulations regarding allegations of misconduct and abuse by our members or those seeking to visit our campus.”

Goldberg added that the committee would be “comprised of a cross section of our membership who will consult closely with mental health professionals, legal counsel and experts.”

The lawsuit alleges that Andron was “allowed to roam the halls” of Y.U.’s high school dormitory during the late 1970s and early ’80s even though he had nothing to do with the school. It cites three men — a Y.U. college student and two Y.U. high school students — who say Andron invited them to stay at his apartment, where he attempted to touch or did touch their genitals.

The Forward has identified a further seven men who say they were abused by Andron in New York or New Jersey during the same period.

One day after the lawsuit was filed, the Boca Raton Synagogue released a statement saying that “the accused person had withdrawn his membership at BRS and agreed not to come to the BRS campus, or attend any BRS event in the future, whether on or off campus.”

The statement added: “Be advised that there have been no allegations we are aware of that any improper conduct occurred within the past 30 years, or in our community.”

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Accused Y.U. Abuser in Florida Speaks to Local News
Richard Andron Declines Comment on Allegations
By Paul Berger
Forward - July 25, 2013

Richard Andron, the man accused of sexually abusing boys in New York and New Jersey decades ago, has spoken for the first time — though he did not say much.

Andron, 67, answered the door of his Boca Raton home to a reporter from CBS12 News, in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 25. Wearing a black yarmulke and looking frail, Andron spoke only to decline the CBS reporter’s offer to air Andron’s version of events.

“I need to talk to an attorney before I talk to anybody,” Andron said, before waving at the camera and closing his door.

Andron, a longtime member of the Boca Raton Synagogue, was named in a high-profile lawsuit filed July 8 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y. He is one of three men accused of abuse by former students of Yeshiva University High School for Boys, in Manhattan.

The Forward has identified a further seven men who say they were abused by Andron in New York or New Jersey during the same period.

Some angry Boca Raton congregants want to know whether the rabbi of the Boca Raton Synagogue, Efrem Goldberg, his predecessors or board members were aware of the allegations against Andron before they became public.

Goldberg announced July 24 that the synagogue’s board of directors has set up a special committee to reexamine how the synagogue deals with members accused of abuse and congregant safety.

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Friday, June 22, 1984

Case of Richard Andron

YU buried this because of money, another plaintiff tells The Forward, referring to a $250,000 donation accepted by then-YU President Norman Lamm.