Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, M.Sc., Ph.D., L.N.H.A
(AKA: Abraham Mondrowitz, Avraham Mondrowitz, Avremel Mondrowitz)
Born - Poland
(West Rogers Park) Chicago, IL
(West Rogers Park) Chicago, IL
Borough Park, NY
Psychologist, Ohel Childrens and Family Services - Brooklyn, NY
Tel Aviv, Israel
Fundraiser, Jerusalem College of Technology - Jerusalem, Israel
Tel Aviv, Israel
Fundraiser, Jerusalem College of Technology - Jerusalem, Israel
This page is dedicated to all of those who were sexually victimized by Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz; and also a dedication to those who lost their lives as a result of the crimes committed against them.
Avrohom Mondrowitz was born in Poland in 1947 and was the son of a highly respected rabbi. After World War II, as a child Mondrowitz, relocated with his family to Tel Aviv, Israel. A few years later in the early 1950s, his family moved to Chicago (West Rogers Park). After his bar mitzvah, Avrohom Mondrowitz attend the Telshe Yeshiva, in Wickliffe, Ohio.
It has been rumored for years that Avrohom Mondrowitz grew up in the same apartment building in Chicago as alleged sex offender Meyer Miller. Many believe that Mondrowitz was also abused by this neighbor.
In the 1970s, Avrohom Mondrowitz moved to Brooklyn, telling everyone he held a master's degree in the sciences, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia, and another Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Florida. In addition to being an ordained rabbi. The Jews of Brooklyn were impressed. It was around that time that Mondrowitz began to acquire social status. He wrote articles on education for the Haredi press, had a radio program on which he gave listeners advice on how to treat children. He also established a yeshiva (school) for at risk youth -- which was actively involved with Ohel Family Services.
Finally, he hung a "psychologist" sign on his door and started to receive patients.
"Children were referred to him, hard cases from Ohel, and he treated them. Rabbis also referred children to him for treatment. His expertise was treating children who had been sexually molested."
Children who visited his office, which was located in the basement of his home, remember him boasting about the "bragging wall," on which hung his diplomas and certificates, all finely framed, which attested to his qualifications as a therapist. But according to Patricia Kehoe, a retired New York Police Department detective, "his diplomas turned out to be fakes, including his rabbinical ordination."
The police suspect that in that office, behind a closed door and drawn curtains, he sexually abused children, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
Four children, all from Italian families and all neighbors of Mondrowitz, complained of sexual abuse perpetrated by Mondrowitz. Jewish survivors also eventually testified against him, but only after the statute of limitations on sex crimes in the state of New York had expired.
In 1985, a New York State court charged Mondrowitz with eight counts of child abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child and five counts of sodomy in the first degree. Right after an arrest warrant was issued, Avrohom Mondrowitz moved his family from New York, and fled to Jerusalem, Israel.
At the time of the indictment, sodomy of boys was not an extraditable crime, since it was not defined as rape under Israeli law. In 1988, the Knesset changed that law, apparently opening the way for Mondrowitz's extradition.
It's also important to note a common theme seen in many cases of alleged clergy sexual abuse in the orthodox world, is to say that someone is NOT a real rabbi. The truth is that a rabbi is a teacher and does not necessary need to have an official ordination to be consider to be a rabbi. To learn more about this topic: Click Here
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Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
Timeline
1984
- Child Counselor in Brooklyn Is Charged With Abusing Boy (12/10/1984)
1987
- Rabbi Ordered Out Of Israel To Face Abuse Charge In US (03/19/1987)
- Dateline: Jerusalem (03/19/1987)
- Israel Will Extradite Self-Styled U.S. Rabbi (03/19/1987)
- Rabbi faces deportation to U.S. on charges of molesting children (03/20/1987)
- Expulsion move sought over child sex attacks (03/20/1987)
- Rabbi faces deportation to U.S. on charges of molesting children (03/20/1987)
- Em New York, Avrohom Mondrowitz (03/20/1987)
- Israel Preparing Rabbi's Deportation (03/20/1987)
- The World (03/20/1987)
- Israel to deport doctor (03/23/1987)
1997
- Re: Hebrew Pronounciation (09/23/1997)
- Lashon Harah (the language of Evil) (09/23/1997)
2003
- Clergy As Mandated Reporters
- A
Community's Shameful Silence: Two women are working to get Orthodox
rabbis to do more to inform and educate the public about child sexual
abuse (02/03/2003)
- Jewish Community Grapples With Sex Abuse (05/27/2003)
- A 'Crisis' For Jewish Leaders: Struggling with allegations against rabbis of sex abuse Series (05/27/2003)
- Tripping Up The Prosecution: Social pressure, refuge in Israel thwart sex-abuse cases Series (05/28/2003)
2006
- On the Rabbi's Knee (05/15/2006)
- Silence of the Lam (07/25/2006)
- Rabbi Rousers - 80s Victims Want 'Perv' Extradited (07/25/2006)
- Victims Press Brooklyn D.A. To Seek Abuse Suspect's Extradition From Israel (07/26/2006)
- Silence of the Lam (07/26/2006)
- Child Sex Abuse Case Still Haunts - The Cold Case of Avrohom Mondrowitz and the Silencing of a Community (10/11/2006)
- Did an alleged sex abuser escape justice? (11/09/2006)
2007
- Brooklyn D.A. wants alleged molestor extradited (10/11/2007)
- Abuse victims hope healing begins with rabbi's arrest (10/17/2007)
- Hynes Now Seeks Mondrowitz Extradition (10/18/2007)
- US wants extradition of prominent Ger hassid accused of sodomy (10/23/2007)
- U.S. asks Israel to extradite ultra-Orthodox Jew accused of child abuse (11/14/2007)
- UPDATED: U.S. asks Israel to extradite ultra-Orthodox Jew accused of child abuse (11/14/2007)
- Mondrowitz arrested in Israel (11/14/2007)
- In the basement, behind a closed door (11/15/2007)
- Israel Police arrest alleged child molester wanted in the U.S. (11/16/2007)
- Prosecutors seek extradition of 'rabbi' in 1984 sex abuse case (11/16/2007)
- 22 Years Later, a Child Abuse Suspect's Extradition Is Sought (11/16/2007)
- Israeli police detain self-styled rabbi charged with sexual abuse (11/16/2007)
- Suspected molester arrested in Israel (11/16/2007)
- Israel Police arrest alleged child molester wanted in the U.S. (11/16/2007)
- Breaking: Activists Cheer Arrest of Monrowitz in Israel (11/16/2007)
- Police arrest purported rabbi charged with sexual abuse (11/16/2007)
- Ex-Brooklyn rabbi likely to be dragged back to Brooklyn to face kid-sex charges (11/17/2007)
- Ex-Brooklyn 'Rabbi' Arrested in Israel on Sex Charges (11/17/2007)
- Fugitve 'Pervert' Rabbi Held (11/17/2007)
- Israel requests clarification of U.S. extradition request for suspect of sodomy (11/17/2007)
- Israel asks US to clarify extradition request for alleged pedophile (11/17/2007)
- Man arrested over alleged sexual offenses in U.S. (11/17/2007)
- Ex-Brooklyn Rabbi Could Face Sex Assault Charges (11/17/2007)
- US ultra-Orthodox Jew appears in Jerusalem court (11/18/2007)
- J'lem court extends remand of alleged U.S. pedophile by 9 days (11/18/2007)
- CALL TO ACTION #1 (11/18/2007)
- Message from Sol Werdiger and the Gerer Rebbe Regarding Avrohom Mondrowitz (11/25/2007)
- CALL To ACTION #2 (11/18/2007)
- Ex-Brooklyn rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz faces extradition to U.S. on kid-sex rap (11/19/2007)
- Israel may extradite sex abuse suspect (11/19/2007)
- PRESS RELEASE: Israeli Miinster of Justice on the case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz (11/28/2007)
- 'I planned to murder Mondrowitz' (11/29/2007)
2008
- Extradition of US Orthodox Jew wanted for sexual attacks approved (02/10/2008)
- Court rules to extradite alleged U.S. serial molester Mondrowitz (02/10/2008)
- Court rules alleged U.S. pedophile Mondrowitz must stay in custody (02/10/2008)
- Alleged child molester can be extradited (02/10/2008)
- Israeli court OKs extradition of Brooklyn man wanted in sex case (02/10/2008)
- Israel can extradite alleged N.Y. serial molester (02/11/2008)
- Court okays extradition of haredi suspected of pedophilia (02/11/2008)
- Brooklyn rabbi accused of sexual abuse loses extradition battle (02/11/2008)
- Armed With New Treaty, Israeli Judge Orders `Rabbi' Back to Brooklyn (02/11/2008)
2012
- Brooklyn Prosecutor's Role In Abuse Case Is Examined (06/29/2012)
2013
Also see:
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Timeline:
December 3, 1984 -- Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman's office said Mondrowitz was named in an arrest warrant charging him with two counts of sex abuse". At the time, Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz worked in special education school for boys in Brooklyn, that had connections with Ohel Children and Family Services in Brooklyn, New York. He was responsible for about 20-25 young children who already had either emotional problems and/or learning disabilities.
October 11, 2007 -- Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes finally signed papers requesting the U.S. Justice Department extradite Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz back to the United States. Fled to Israel months after charges were first brought up against him twenty-three years ago.
November 16, 2007 -- Israeli police arrested Avrohom Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid who was suspected of sexually abusing children in the United States was arrested pending extradition orders to the U.S.
November 18, 2007 - At the extraditon Hearing for Alleged Serial Child Molester, Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, the judge extended Mondrowitz's detention until November 27, at which point he will decide whether Mondrowitz will remain in jail or be placed under house arrest. Mondrowitz's attorney, David Ofek, said he plans to appeal the decision to keep Mondrowitz in custody.
November 29, 2007 - The Israeli Minister of Justice released that Mondrowitz's extradition case is being handled by the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney (prosecutors Nili Gesser and Marlene Mazel-Herskowitz) and in cooperation with the Israeli Police's Interpol Department.
October 11, 2007 -- Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes finally signed papers requesting the U.S. Justice Department extradite Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz back to the United States. Fled to Israel months after charges were first brought up against him twenty-three years ago.
November 16, 2007 -- Israeli police arrested Avrohom Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid who was suspected of sexually abusing children in the United States was arrested pending extradition orders to the U.S.
November 18, 2007 - At the extraditon Hearing for Alleged Serial Child Molester, Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, the judge extended Mondrowitz's detention until November 27, at which point he will decide whether Mondrowitz will remain in jail or be placed under house arrest. Mondrowitz's attorney, David Ofek, said he plans to appeal the decision to keep Mondrowitz in custody.
November 29, 2007 - The Israeli Minister of Justice released that Mondrowitz's extradition case is being handled by the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney (prosecutors Nili Gesser and Marlene Mazel-Herskowitz) and in cooperation with the Israeli Police's Interpol Department.
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Child Counselor in Brooklyn Is Charged With Abusing Boy
The New York Times - December 10, 1984
A Brooklyn man who runs a child counseling practice from his home is being sought on charges he sexually abused a 10-year-old boy, authorities said last night.
The man was identified as Avrohom Mondrowitz of 1440 60th Street in the Borough Park section. A spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, which issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Mondrowitz last week, said he was ''missing'' from his home.
The complaint on which the warrant is based charges Mr. Mondrowitz with two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree and endangering the welfare of a child.
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Rabbi Ordered Out Of Israel To Face Abuse Charges In US
The Associated Press (Boston Globe) - March 19, 1987
TEL AVIV -- The government has ordered the expulsion of a self-styled rabbi who has been charged in New York with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy under his care, the interior minister said yesterday.
Israeli-born Abraham Mondrowitz, 40, has denied wrongdoing. His Israeli attorney, David Ofek, said the child molesting charge was an "ugly libel."
Mondrowitz is not in custody in Israel, and his whereabouts was not immediately known.
The expulsion order came more than two...
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Dateline: Jerusalem
United Press International - March 19, 1987, Thursday, BC
JERUSALEM: Officials said Thursday an ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi is facing deportation to the United States to face charges of sexually molesting children in New York.
Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic and hosting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In Brooklyn, a spokesman for District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman said Mondrowitz was indicted in December 1984 on two charges of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
The Jerusalem Post reported the New York Police Department has issued wanted posters featuring a photo of the bearded, bespectacled, black-clad Mondrowitz, saying he is sought for numerous sexual abuses in Brooklyn.
Mondrowitz, in Jerusalem with his family, denied the charges.
''In my life, I have never raped children. I am a healthy man in body and spirit,'' he told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Mondrowitz moved to Israel from New York two years ago with his wife and seven children.
U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he left New York, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz refused the request. Peretz recently left office and U.S. authorities tried again for deportation.
Extradition was ruled out because the crimes Mondrowitz is charged with are not covered by the U.S.-Israeli extradition treaty.
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Israel Will Extradite Self-Styled Rabbi
By Associated Press
Los Angeles Times - March 19, 1987
TEL AVIV Israel has ordered the expulsion of a self-styled rabbi who has been charged in New York with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy under his care, the Interior Minister said Wednesday.
Israeli-born Abraham Mondrowitz, 40, arrived in Israel in 1985 from New York, where he had counseled children at an unlicensed clinic in his home. In December, 1984, New York City police charged that on two occasions in June of that year, Mondrowitz abused a 10-year-old boy at his home, which doubled as his office.
By Associated Press
Los Angeles Times - March 19, 1987
TEL AVIV Israel has ordered the expulsion of a self-styled rabbi who has been charged in New York with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy under his care, the Interior Minister said Wednesday.
Israeli-born Abraham Mondrowitz, 40, arrived in Israel in 1985 from New York, where he had counseled children at an unlicensed clinic in his home. In December, 1984, New York City police charged that on two occasions in June of that year, Mondrowitz abused a 10-year-old boy at his home, which doubled as his office.
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Rabbi faces deportation to U.S. on charges of molesting children
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The Ottawa Citizen - March 20, 1987
JERUSALEM (UPI) - Officials said Thursday an ultra-Orthodox Jewish
rabbi is facing deportation to the United States to face charges of
sexually molesting children in New York.
Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz,
who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology
clinic and hosting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In Brooklyn, a spokesman for District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman said Mondrowitz was indicted in December 1984 on two charges of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
The Jerusalem Post reported the New York Police Department has issued
wanted posters featuring a photo of the bearded, bespectacled,
black-clad Mondrowitz, saying he is sought for numerous sexual abuses in Brooklyn.
Mondrowitz, in Jerusalem with his family, denied the charges.
"In my life, I have never raped children. I am a healthy man in body and spirit," he told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Mondrowitz moved to Israel from New York two years ago with his wife and seven children.
U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz
shortly after he left New York, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak
Peretz refused the request. Peretz recently left office and U.S.
authorities tried again for deportation.
Extradition was ruled out because the crimes Mondrowitz is charged with are not covered by the U.S.-Israeli extradition treaty.
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Expulsion move sought over child sex attacks
By Ian Murray
The Times (London) - March 20 1987
JERUSALEM The Israeli Ministry of the Interior is drawing up a deportation order against an ultra-Orthodox child psychologist wanted for questioning in the United States about alleged sexual assaults on more than 100 children, of whom 28 are now said to be suffering from Aids.
The man involved, Dr Avroham Mondrowitz, has been living in Israel for two years using an extended tourist visa, but according to relatives he has now gone into hiding with his wife and six of his seven children. His lawyer has described the allegations, made in charges by the Brooklyn Sex Crimes Squad, as 'ugly libel'.
In an interview last summer with the Jerusalem Post, Dr Mondrowitz said the allegations against him were false. But a New York grand jury has so far received six sworn affidavits alleging sexual assault by him. A Brooklyn rabbinical edict alleges that he took children to see pornographic films and then sexually assaulted or raped them.
Previous extradition requests were rejected by the former Interior Minister, Mr Yitzhak Peretz, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.
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By Ian Murray
The Times (London) - March 20 1987
JERUSALEM The Israeli Ministry of the Interior is drawing up a deportation order against an ultra-Orthodox child psychologist wanted for questioning in the United States about alleged sexual assaults on more than 100 children, of whom 28 are now said to be suffering from Aids.
The man involved, Dr Avroham Mondrowitz, has been living in Israel for two years using an extended tourist visa, but according to relatives he has now gone into hiding with his wife and six of his seven children. His lawyer has described the allegations, made in charges by the Brooklyn Sex Crimes Squad, as 'ugly libel'.
In an interview last summer with the Jerusalem Post, Dr Mondrowitz said the allegations against him were false. But a New York grand jury has so far received six sworn affidavits alleging sexual assault by him. A Brooklyn rabbinical edict alleges that he took children to see pornographic films and then sexually assaulted or raped them.
Previous extradition requests were rejected by the former Interior Minister, Mr Yitzhak Peretz, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.
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Rabbi faces deportation to U.S. on charges of molesting children
The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa - Mar 20, 1987; pg. A.1
Abstract: Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic and hosting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he left New York, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz refused the request. Peretz recently left office and U.S. authorities tried again for deportation.
JERUSALEM (UPI) - Officials said Thursday an ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi is facing deportation to the United States to face charges of sexually molesting children in New York.
Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic and hosting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In Brooklyn, a spokesman for District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman said Mondrowitz was indicted in December 1984 on two charges of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
The Jerusalem Post reported the New York Police Department has issued wanted posters featuring a photo of the bearded, bespectacled, black-clad Mondrowitz, saying he is sought for numerous sexual abuses in Brooklyn.
Mondrowitz, in Jerusalem with his family, denied the charges.
"In my life, I have never raped children. I am a healthy man in body and spirit," he told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Mondrowitz moved to Israel from New York two years ago with his wife and seven children.
U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he left New York, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz refused the request. Peretz recently left office and U.S. authorities tried again for deportation.
Extradition was ruled out because the crimes Mondrowitz is charged with are not covered by the U.S.-Israeli extradition treaty.
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The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa - Mar 20, 1987; pg. A.1
Abstract: Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic and hosting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn, N.Y.
U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he left New York, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz refused the request. Peretz recently left office and U.S. authorities tried again for deportation.
JERUSALEM (UPI) - Officials said Thursday an ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi is facing deportation to the United States to face charges of sexually molesting children in New York.
Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic and hosting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn, N.Y.
In Brooklyn, a spokesman for District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman said Mondrowitz was indicted in December 1984 on two charges of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
The Jerusalem Post reported the New York Police Department has issued wanted posters featuring a photo of the bearded, bespectacled, black-clad Mondrowitz, saying he is sought for numerous sexual abuses in Brooklyn.
Mondrowitz, in Jerusalem with his family, denied the charges.
"In my life, I have never raped children. I am a healthy man in body and spirit," he told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Mondrowitz moved to Israel from New York two years ago with his wife and seven children.
U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he left New York, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz refused the request. Peretz recently left office and U.S. authorities tried again for deportation.
Extradition was ruled out because the crimes Mondrowitz is charged with are not covered by the U.S.-Israeli extradition treaty.
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Israel Preparing Rabbi's Deportation
Sun Sentinel (Page 14A), Fort Lauderdale - March 20, 1987
JERUSALEM -- An ultra-Orthodox rabbi is facing deportation to the United States to face charges he molested children in New York, officials said Thursday.
Justice Ministry officials said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child-psychology clinic and conducting a weekly radio talk show in Brooklyn. Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman's office said Mondrowitz was named in a Dec. 3, 1984, arrest warrant charging him with two counts of sex abuse.
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Em New York, Avrohom Mondrowitz
www.psicopedagogia.com.br/artigos/artigo.asp?entrID=29
"Em New York, Avrohom Mondrowitz, um rabino ortodoxo, dono de uma clínica de psicologia infantil no Brooklyn, foi processado por agressão sexual a mais de 100 crianças. (JB 20/3/87) Conforme depoimentos, perante um tribunal, o rabino, que fugiu para Israel, levava meninas para assistir a filmes pornográficos e depois as estuprava."
(The following is a google translation to english - We've added square bracketed words to improve readibility - We don't have any understanding of Portuguese - also we are not sure if girls is the correct translation, as we were under the impression he preyed on boys).
In New York, Avrohom Mondrowitz, an orthodox rabbi, owner of a clinic of infantile psychology in the Brooklyn, was processed [charged] by [with] sexual aggression [molestation of] more than the 100 children. (JB 20/3/87)
As [according to] depositions, before a court, the rabbi, who ran away for [fled to] Israel, took girls to attend the pornographic films and later he raped them.
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THE WORLD
Los Angeles Times - March 20, 1987
THE WORLD A Jewish Orthodox rabbi is facing deportation from Israel to the United States to face child-molesting charges. Israel's Justice Ministry said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic in Brooklyn. A 1984 New York arrest warrant accused Mondrowitz of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. He has denied the charges. U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he moved to Israel, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz denied the request. Peretz recently left office, and U.S. authorities again sought deportation.
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Los Angeles Times - March 20, 1987
THE WORLD A Jewish Orthodox rabbi is facing deportation from Israel to the United States to face child-molesting charges. Israel's Justice Ministry said a deportation order is being prepared against Avrohom Mondrowitz, who moved to Israel two years ago after operating a child psychology clinic in Brooklyn. A 1984 New York arrest warrant accused Mondrowitz of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. He has denied the charges. U.S. officials asked Israel to deport Mondrowitz shortly after he moved to Israel, but former Interior Minister Yitzhak Peretz denied the request. Peretz recently left office, and U.S. authorities again sought deportation.
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Israel to deport doctor
By Ian Murray
The Times (London) - March 23 1987
JERUSALEM Mr Ronni Milo, the acting Israeli Interior Minister, is to press ahead with an order to deport Dr Avroham Mondrowitz, an ultra-Orthodox child psychologist who is wanted for questioning about sexual assaults on Jewish boys in Brooklyn (Ian Murray writes).
The doctor has had tests for Aids because 28 of those he is said to have interfered with are alleged to have been infected. The tests have shown that he does not have Aids nor is he a carrier of it, but Mr Milo says he will issue the order because 'an accused person - Jew or non-Jew - should stand trial'.
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Re: Hebrew Pronounciation
Avrohom Mondrowitz (avrohom.mondrowitz@telrad.co.il)
Torah.org - Tue, 23 Sep 1997
http://www.torah.org/linkedlists/torah-forum/vol3/0783.html
Since the establishment of the State of Israel, it has become fashionable to speak Hebrew with a Sephardic accent. The truth is that, though it is difficult for us Ashkenazim to accept, Loshon Hakodesh was pronounced in a manner more similar to today's Sephardic manner than to ours.
The famed sage Rabbi Noson Adler of Frankfort au Main, Germany , brought a special person from Israel , over 200 years ago, to teach him the correct pronunciation. Rabbi Adler's successor and famous student Rabbi Moshe Sofer, the "Chasam Sofer" also prayed using the Sephardic dialect. Yet among his famous responsa he told his congregants in Frankfort and elsewhere, to continue using their customary dialect "while praying 'Lifnei Hateiva', as the public prayer leader or cantor".
There is another point called "messora", the handing down of customs and traditions, that can not be easily abandoned. This is a very involved law, and quite interesting. By the way, in the same manner that Ashkenazi pronunciation has changed due to the influence of the different European languages spoken, so it is with today's Sephardic pronunciations. There is change due to African and Arabic languages that have left their mark. Probably the purest form of Loshon Hakodesh available today is found by those that lived in Teiman (Yemen).
Avrohom Mondrowitz,
Jerusalem
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Lashon Harah (the language of Evil)
Avrohom Mondrowitz (avrohom.mondrowitz@telrad.co.il)
Torah.org - Tue, 23 Sep 1997 10:19:06 +0200
http://www.torah.org/linkedlists/torah-forum/vol3/0786.html
In answer to Karen Binney's question of "are jokes about an individual or group (usually degratory - my addition) considered Loshon Hara, if you look in the very first verse of Thillim (Psalms), King David clearly states "and in a group of 'Leitzim' he was not sitting". There is a difference between humor and "Leitzonut". The Ibn Ezra as well as the Metzudat Tzion both explain that a "Letz" tends to besmirch another's honor or name in a way that seems innocuous and therefore settles itself in one's heart easier. This is a different matter than Loshon Horah. The Chafetz Chaim, the author of the the definitive "Shmirat Halashon" explains that the sin of "Letzonut" is on a par with speaking Loshon Harah.
Avrohom Mondrowitz,
Jerusalem
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A
Community's Shameful Silence: Two women are working to get Orthodox
rabbis to do more to inform and educate the public about child sexual
abuse
Chicago Jewish News - Jan. 28 - Feb. 3, 2000 (page 16 - 19)
By Joseph Aaron and Golda Shira
It is a story more than 30 years old.
A story few wish to talk about and even fewer wish to hear about, a story of children being sexually abused by respected members of the community, a story of rabbinic leaders devoting more energy to keeping the story out of the public eye than making sure the perpetrator doesn't strike again, a story of victims feeling not only uncared for but feeling victimized over and over by not having what was done to them publicly acknowledged, by having to watch as their perpetrators walk around the community. It is a story of two many Jews not wanting to believe something like this could happen among Jews by Jews, a story of how their disbelief has allowed it to keep happening.
It is a story that goes back more than 30 years and a story that until very recently was continuing to go on, destroying lives.
It is not a very pretty story, but it is a story that is resulting in, if not a happy, at least, a productive, constructive ending. In the shameful silence coming to an end. In positive steps being taken. In a community coming face to face with reality and giving a face to all those who have
suffered in silence and searing pain.
And that is thanks to the work of tow very determined, very courageous, very caring women, women who would not just pretend it wasn't happening, wouldn't just sit back when others were doing nothing, wouldn't let ignorance of fear of shame be an answer. Two women who pushed and pushed community leaders to recognize and acknowledge how serious was the problem, to understand that
trying to keep it hidden was the very worst thing to do, who understood that protecting the victims was far more important than shielding the perpetrator, who understood that the only way to ensure there were no future victims was not to assume the problem would disappear but to address the problem head on.
 |
| Debbie Hartman and Jo Brucks - Heroes/Women of Valor |
It
would be a cliché to call Debbie Hartman and Jo Bruck women of valor.
Besides that, the far more accurate description is that they are women
with guts, inspiring women who saw ignorance and indifference and wrong
all around them and who wouldn't give up until people starting caring,
started acting, started doing what was right.
And right needed to be done for a very long time.
The story begins more than 30 years ago, when a respected well-known member of the Chicago's Orthodox community began sexually molesting young girls. Most were between the ages of 5 and 12. Each thought they were the only one. And so all kept quiet about what had happened to them.
Which is why it kept happening. Some Orthodox leaders knew about it bust said nothing, did nothing. Most members of the community heard the occasional whispered rumor but either didn't believe it or chose not to believe it.
And because each of the victims thought they were the only ones, they said nothing, in most cases blaming themselves, figuring they had done something wrong for this to happen to them.
It was about seven years ago that a community lecture on sexual abuse was canceled because it was decided it was "not relevant for the from community." When Bruck was told that by the event organizer, she said, "oh yes, it is." Hartman and Bruck, who are sisters, had a family member who was a victim of abuse.
Over lunch shortly after, Hartman mentioned the incident to the women she was with and said that, in fact, there was someone in the community who had abused young girls. "One of the women go very upset and said 'you must tell me who it is, you must tell me right now'. And then she told us that he done the same to her more than 20 years before.
Then, Hartman said, word began circulating in her shul that a child had also been victimized by the man, a kosher butcher. "I asked her parents if that was true," said Hartman, "and they said it was".
It was with that that Hartman began "shaking things up, talking about this, saying something had to be done." Once it became known she was talking about it, Hartman said she got calls from others who had also been victimized.
"I wasn't out looking for this and this in not something people want to share. But they had kept it buried for so long and when they found out they weren't alone, they needed to open up."
Indeed, Hartman tells of one woman who had been victimized when she was five years old "and hadn't told a soul until she told me, when she was thirty something. She had been festering inside of her for all those years and when she finally opened up the gates, it was like a flood of emotions."
Hartman isn't sure why this woman and others opened up to her. She is sure, however, why she listened and responded.
"One of my family members was hurt in a way they should not have been hurt and didn't tell anyone for a very long time. They didn't know how. No one should have to feel such pain, humiliation and degradation. No one should have to wait 30 years to be helped."
What made sure Hartman would begin a crusade to see that help was there, was when she was talking to a woman in shul who had just moved to Chicago from out of town and learned that the family was temporarily staying in the house of the perpetrator.
"I told her she needed to know that while the wife was nice, she had to be very careful about the husband. I thought she might get mad at me, tell me to mind my own business. Instead, she thanked me and said 'I couldn’t understand why he kept taking my daughter down to the van with him.' The woman came back a few minutes later and thanked me again.
"Needless to say they quickly moved out of that house. The truth is I was sick to my stomach having to tell her that, but I knew somebody had to say something'.
And do something about this man who had been molesting young girls in the community for more than 25 years.
Problem is no one was doing anything about it. Hartman and Bruck asked a therapist they knew to go to the community's leading rabbis and urge them to do something about the perpetrator. After much urging and pushing, the rabbis did finally call the man in. He admitted to having abused the young girls and promised to stop. Shocked that he so readily confessed, the rabbis told him to get counseling and instituted some minor restrictions on his activities.
And that was that.
And right needed to be done for a very long time.
The story begins more than 30 years ago, when a respected well-known member of the Chicago's Orthodox community began sexually molesting young girls. Most were between the ages of 5 and 12. Each thought they were the only one. And so all kept quiet about what had happened to them.
Which is why it kept happening. Some Orthodox leaders knew about it bust said nothing, did nothing. Most members of the community heard the occasional whispered rumor but either didn't believe it or chose not to believe it.
And because each of the victims thought they were the only ones, they said nothing, in most cases blaming themselves, figuring they had done something wrong for this to happen to them.
It was about seven years ago that a community lecture on sexual abuse was canceled because it was decided it was "not relevant for the from community." When Bruck was told that by the event organizer, she said, "oh yes, it is." Hartman and Bruck, who are sisters, had a family member who was a victim of abuse.
Over lunch shortly after, Hartman mentioned the incident to the women she was with and said that, in fact, there was someone in the community who had abused young girls. "One of the women go very upset and said 'you must tell me who it is, you must tell me right now'. And then she told us that he done the same to her more than 20 years before.
Then, Hartman said, word began circulating in her shul that a child had also been victimized by the man, a kosher butcher. "I asked her parents if that was true," said Hartman, "and they said it was".
It was with that that Hartman began "shaking things up, talking about this, saying something had to be done." Once it became known she was talking about it, Hartman said she got calls from others who had also been victimized.
"I wasn't out looking for this and this in not something people want to share. But they had kept it buried for so long and when they found out they weren't alone, they needed to open up."
Indeed, Hartman tells of one woman who had been victimized when she was five years old "and hadn't told a soul until she told me, when she was thirty something. She had been festering inside of her for all those years and when she finally opened up the gates, it was like a flood of emotions."
Hartman isn't sure why this woman and others opened up to her. She is sure, however, why she listened and responded.
"One of my family members was hurt in a way they should not have been hurt and didn't tell anyone for a very long time. They didn't know how. No one should have to feel such pain, humiliation and degradation. No one should have to wait 30 years to be helped."
What made sure Hartman would begin a crusade to see that help was there, was when she was talking to a woman in shul who had just moved to Chicago from out of town and learned that the family was temporarily staying in the house of the perpetrator.
"I told her she needed to know that while the wife was nice, she had to be very careful about the husband. I thought she might get mad at me, tell me to mind my own business. Instead, she thanked me and said 'I couldn’t understand why he kept taking my daughter down to the van with him.' The woman came back a few minutes later and thanked me again.
"Needless to say they quickly moved out of that house. The truth is I was sick to my stomach having to tell her that, but I knew somebody had to say something'.
And do something about this man who had been molesting young girls in the community for more than 25 years.
Problem is no one was doing anything about it. Hartman and Bruck asked a therapist they knew to go to the community's leading rabbis and urge them to do something about the perpetrator. After much urging and pushing, the rabbis did finally call the man in. He admitted to having abused the young girls and promised to stop. Shocked that he so readily confessed, the rabbis told him to get counseling and instituted some minor restrictions on his activities.
And that was that.
This
story broke in the Chicago Jewish News a year after The Awareness
Center started organizing. Unfortunately, it took a few years before
anyone would name the offender in this case, along with several other
names.
Please
note that there is no mention of the alleged offender Meyer Miller who
was a Kosher Butch in Chicago. His alleged victims included alleged sex
offender Dr. Rabbi, Avrohom Mondrowitz. For more information on this
case, click here.
But that was not enough.
"You would see him at public events," said Hartman. "In fact, I was there
when he came up to get his ticket and one of his victims was working behind
the desk. She sees him and starts shaking, shaking and he's fine, he's having
a life."
And so Hartman and her sister went back to the rabbis and pushed more, pushed to have the rabbis "come up with more stringent rules and regulations on what he could and couldn't do. That he shouldn't be allowed to go to a bar mitzvah, weddings, any social events. So they finally did that. But other things that should have been done were not done. It was a year before his own family was told. Meanwhile, his oldest daughters were in outreach and would bring home girls and girls and girls every Shabbos. When what he had done became known in the community, his youngest daughter was still living in the house with him. She should have been in counseling, but he wouldn't allow it. Who the hell is he not to allow it. But nobody did anything about it."
The problem, says Hartman, was that this was an area that the community's leading rabbis were simply not prepared to handle properly.
"They're not educated in this. Which is understandable. When they were in school, no one ever sat down with them and said someday you're going to have to deal with sexual molestation and abuse."
Hartman doesn't blame them for not knowing, but she does blame them for not trying to know, for the community's rabbis not coming together and sitting down and figuring out how to deal with this.
They didn't do that, says Bruck, "because they don’t' want any part of it. They don't want to believe this happens. And so even when it was shown that it does happen, they say it was an isolated incident, that Jewish men don't behave like this, that it will not happen again."
But does. And it has.
when he came up to get his ticket and one of his victims was working behind
the desk. She sees him and starts shaking, shaking and he's fine, he's having
a life."
And so Hartman and her sister went back to the rabbis and pushed more, pushed to have the rabbis "come up with more stringent rules and regulations on what he could and couldn't do. That he shouldn't be allowed to go to a bar mitzvah, weddings, any social events. So they finally did that. But other things that should have been done were not done. It was a year before his own family was told. Meanwhile, his oldest daughters were in outreach and would bring home girls and girls and girls every Shabbos. When what he had done became known in the community, his youngest daughter was still living in the house with him. She should have been in counseling, but he wouldn't allow it. Who the hell is he not to allow it. But nobody did anything about it."
The problem, says Hartman, was that this was an area that the community's leading rabbis were simply not prepared to handle properly.
"They're not educated in this. Which is understandable. When they were in school, no one ever sat down with them and said someday you're going to have to deal with sexual molestation and abuse."
Hartman doesn't blame them for not knowing, but she does blame them for not trying to know, for the community's rabbis not coming together and sitting down and figuring out how to deal with this.
They didn't do that, says Bruck, "because they don’t' want any part of it. They don't want to believe this happens. And so even when it was shown that it does happen, they say it was an isolated incident, that Jewish men don't behave like this, that it will not happen again."
But does. And it has.
Indeed,
it was just in the last couple of months that it was discovered a
teacher at one of Chicago's Orthodox day schools, a rabbi, had been
sexually molesting students, mostly boys.
According to Marjorie Newman, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services, their investigation found that at least nine students at the school, 8 boys and one girl, ages 10 to 14, were abused.
And there may be more. "We know it wasn't just this year," said Bruck. "He has taught there for many years. He also gave bar mitzvah lessons. One incident is bad enough", said Bruck, "but this is unbelievable.
When they learned of this second, current incidence of a respected community member sexually molesting children, Hartman and Bruck were determined things would be handled differently than they were seven years ago.
"When we came to them so many years ago, it would have been nice if they had gotten together and put into effect some sort of program, some sort of mechanism but they were not willing to do it, " said Hartman. "If they had, maybe what has happened wouldn't have, maybe one of these young men would have spoken up and said 'my rebbe is doing something that is wrong' and it would have been stopped earlier. They would have had a place to go, know there would be someone who would do something."
But because nothing was done then, Hartman and Bruck were adamant something be done now.
Incredibly, however, at first, they got basically the same king of response this time as they had last time from virtually all the rabbis in the Orthodox community.
"We went to several rabbis and nobody would step up and do anything," said Hartman.
"We approached every rav," adds Bruck. "They weren't surprised about it, they all knew about it and they all said no thanks, we don't want any involvement. They were not interested in dealing with it."
Which convinced the two sisters they had to go and talk to the community's leading halachic authority.
But wanting to make sure all aspects of the issue would be covered by those better versed in the area than they are, Hartman and Bruck asked a prominent rabbi, and Orthodox attorney and an Orthodox psychotherapist to go with them.
"They each said they'd let us know. But we never heard back from any of them. So we went ourselves."
"I told him I was not happy he didn't not get involved seven years ago and that he had to be involved this time," says Hartman. "I did not speak meekly but was adamant to get my point across. We explained to him, from a to z, how others had been victimized because things had not been put into place. He said he didn't know how to deal with it and we explained that wasn't an answer." And so Bruck and Harman spent hours explaining that pedophilia is a disease, explaining why it was so important the community be alerted that this goes on and had been going on, explaining the pain it causes its victims. They begged this rabbi to learn more, to do more. He said he would.
And, indeed, Hartman and Bruck are please that four rabbis, Rabbi Zev Cohen of Congregation Adas Yehurun, Rabbi Gedaliah Schwarts of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst of Agudath Israel of Illinois and Rabbi Avrohom Levin of Telshe Yeshiva have agreed to serve as the rabbinical advisory board of Project Shield, a new effort to more systematically deal with the issue of sexual abuse (see separate story).
Rabbi Cohen defends how the community's rabbis have dealt with the current perpetrator, saying he and three other rabbis have spent more than 300 hours on the case, forming a Beit Din to protect the victims by "confronting the perpetrator, making sure he was in counseling and issuing stringent guidelines to prevent any interactions with young boys." He says the community' should be proud of the "incredible amount of work that has been done to help the victims and their parents and ensure there are no future victims".
Rabbi Cohen adds that the community's rabbis should not be criticized in this instance and says that "if rabbis are not seen as strong in the eyes of the community, they don't have the ability to do anything and that doesn't benefit anyone."
Hartman and Bruck agree that Rabbi Cohen has been the most responsive rabbi in the community about this matter but not that not one rabbi, not even Cohen, has spoken from the pulpit about the issue. And that while he, and Rabbis Levin, Schwartz and Fuerst are trying to deal with the issue, the vast majority of Orthodox rabbis continue to do nothing.
"Our goal is to get the rabbis to work with us on this, not to read this article and get all upset," said Hartman. "Yes, a few rabbis have tried to do good and that's a big step and we are grateful, but we need more, we need a majority to get involved to protect our children.
"Some rabbis say they don't like the line that their attitude about this has been 'don't ask don't tell.' Well I'm sorry but that has been the majority of the rabbinical response."
And because that has been so, the rabbis have failed to let the community know about the issue.
"Why wasn't the community alerted about this school rebbe from the pulpit so that parents could take the necessary precautions," asks Hartman. "Why haven't rabbis gotten up in shul and said something?"
Indeed, Bruck confronted one rabbi and said, "you're the rabbi of a shul. Have you gotten up there and said anything to anyone? He said what do you want me to say? I used to go to his shul and he would talk about Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, talk about O.J. Simpson. I said to him you can talk
about it with your children. So he said to me, "I'm up for suggestions. Please."
While Hartman is please the four rabbis have joined her efforts, she notes that they still have not sat down together as a group and talked about a plan of action. "And I understand that, they are very busy and have a lot of immediate things to deal with. But you can't wait until something else happens. We need the rabbis to be pro-active, to react now and plan now. We can't wait for later, we must prevent there from being a later."
She notes that one rabbi has said that because it happened in her family, she is over reacting to the situation. "No, I've under-reacted, I waited too long to do something, I should have done more seven years ago. The rabbis are talking now about the dangers of the Internet. Well they also need to talk
and educate about this danger."
While Hartman is hopeful they will, some still have their doubts. A therapist involved in the issue says that she put together a bunch of materials about child sexual abuse for the community's leading halachic authority to read and brought it to his house. "He said that he didn't want the material and that the guy's not going to do it again because he's a frum man."
Brucks notes the same king of silence has happened not only in the school where the incidents occurred but in all the Orthodox days schools. "They don't have a clue. Every school and ever principal was called and asked if someone could come in and talk to the parents, to the teachers, to the students and every single one said no, said they felt no one was talking about it and to do so would be to open up a Pandora's box.
"Even more amazing, they haven't even talked to the class whose members were molested."
Why? First and foremost, they don't want it getting out into the public world. The last thing they want is that people should know it happens in the frum community. Then there's the fact that people don't want to believe it happens. There are still lots of people who don't believe what the first perpetrator did is true or they say it's lashon hara (gossip) to talk about it. It's not an issue anyone wants to get involved with, it's easier to say it's a rumor, nobody can prove it. And so they just deny it".
The problem with the rabbis not publicly acknowledging what has occurred, says Hartman, is that it aids the feeling of "most people who don't believe the perpetrator is guilty. After all, up until this point he has been a respected person, so unless you have the facts, but the facts are supposed to be kept confidential to protect the victims and since no one wants to come out and say, 'yes I was sexually abused and this is exactly what happened to me,' you don't have the facts and so it is dismissed as hearsay. Those in the community who know the perpetrator, say they've never been molested so it's probably not true. That's the point. These perpetrators lead a double life so why believe this blind information when I know this guy, he's a nice frum man in our community."
And so the perpetrator gets away with his crime and the victims pay even more.
Indeed, the Department of Children and Family Services began its investigation because one o the boys molested at the school called their hotline to file charges against the rabbi and, says Hartman, "this kid is being persecuted. Kids in that class love their rebbe and so this victim is being penalized for pressing charges, his life is being made a living hell."
Beyond that, the rabbi is being protected to see that he stays out of jail and his story kept out of the newspapers.
Why are the rabbis working so hard to make sure he doesn't stand trail, let alone go to jail? "Because it didn't happen to their kids," said Bruck, "it's as simple as that." The perpetrator's attorney, Hal Garfinkel, refused to comment on any aspect of the case when called by the Chicago Jewish News.
Hartman says the community's fear of the story being public is putting the concern very much on the wrong thing. "I brought one of the victims, now grown up, to the office of one of the rabbis and he said he felt such rage he wanted to murder the perpetrator. The parents of another victim told the
rabbi they wanted to kill the man.
"When a victim voices these raw emotions, the rabbis should be shaking in their boots. But they did nothing, all they were focused on was keeping it out of the papers and the perpetrators out of jail. I finally said, 'are you guys waiting for someone to actually shoot the perpetrator how are you going to hide that from the newspapers?"
To not acknowledge what has gone on, says Bruck, "you destroy victims' lives over and over. Think about those who have poured their hearts out -- and yet who see nothing being done about it, who walk through the community and there the perpetrator is, go to the pizza shop and there he is, so they are victimized over and over again and the rabbinic reaction is nothing. The victims continue to be pained that it is not being publicly acknowledged
that what the perpetrator did was wrong. Meanwhile, the perpetrator, whose life isn't easy, but still he's managing to go to shul, his life goes on, people want to help his family."
Not that there shouldn't be compassion for his family, says Hartman, who calls them victims, too. "I know his wife, she's a very find young woman. Her life is over, her life is hell and will be forever, whether she stays with him or not. He destroyed lots of lives and you have to have sympathy for that. They have eight children. No one knows what goes on behind her closed doors, but I can guarantee, it ain't a pretty site and my heart goes out to her. She and her children are big victims in this."
But, says Harman, first and foremost are the victims this rabbi sexually abused. She calls them "the faceless victims."
"In the case of his family, the community knows who the victims are and so they want to do for them. But everyone seems to be forgetting the faceless victims, these innocent children who nobody knows, who are being left out to hang, to live with this pain the rest of their lives."
Which is why Hartman and Bruck believe it is so important people talk about this, know about it, that people let their rabbis know they expect them to act.
"I think it's pretty pathetic that the rabbis can't work together to protect our innocent children," says Hartman. She notes that the hot issue at the moment in Orthodox circles is something being labeled 'Children at Risk', referring to the increasing number of Orthodox youth who are leaving the community, often getting into drugs and other destructive behaviors.
"You have all the rabbis speaking from the pulpit about 'children at risk'. I think if someone did a little research to see how many of those children were sexually molested, it might be a pretty eye-opening experience. Children do not come from ice home and become so deep rooted in anger and frustration and so self-destructive unless something pretty horrible has happened to them.
"Everybody talks about the children, the children, being there for thechildren, well then when a child or their parent comes to you and say someone has really hurt my child, then do something about it. It's very nice to preach about 'children at risk' but helping children who are victims of sexual abuse is at the core and nobody is responding to it."
And there is no excuse for that, says Bruck. "This happens everywhere, in the every community. It doesn't happen more in the Orthodox community, actually it probably happens less, but it does happen."
Which is why Hartman and Bruck are doing what they're doing, saying what they're saying, because the truth is they wish they didn't have to.
"There is no question some will be unhappy this is being talked about publicly," says Bruck, "but it's either say nothing or say and do something to make things better. People don't want us to talk about it., but that's the only way something gets done."
This is something that goes to the heart of what all of us are supposed to be all about," adds Hartman. "Never in a million years did we think we'd be sitting here talking about this. I am part of this community. Every person in my family has dedicated themselves to being a responsible member of the community and to making it a better community. It is not our desire to tear it apart in any way, shape or form. Our goal is to unite it and make it better.
"Maybe 25 years ago, this kind of thing wasn't discussed. But we discuss it now. This is not going to disappear, not going to go away by itself. So you have to be ready to deal with it."
And you start to do that, she says, by "putting a face on it. We have to give it legitimacy, make it a reality, get our leaders and the community to take it seriously. We need the rabbis to sit down and get educated about it, understand the irreparable damage these perpetrators do to their victims.
"People want to believe they can trust their spiritual leaders to deal with this problem, but if nothing is done, this is a bomb waiting to explode in everyone's face."
According to Marjorie Newman, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services, their investigation found that at least nine students at the school, 8 boys and one girl, ages 10 to 14, were abused.
And there may be more. "We know it wasn't just this year," said Bruck. "He has taught there for many years. He also gave bar mitzvah lessons. One incident is bad enough", said Bruck, "but this is unbelievable.
When they learned of this second, current incidence of a respected community member sexually molesting children, Hartman and Bruck were determined things would be handled differently than they were seven years ago.
"When we came to them so many years ago, it would have been nice if they had gotten together and put into effect some sort of program, some sort of mechanism but they were not willing to do it, " said Hartman. "If they had, maybe what has happened wouldn't have, maybe one of these young men would have spoken up and said 'my rebbe is doing something that is wrong' and it would have been stopped earlier. They would have had a place to go, know there would be someone who would do something."
But because nothing was done then, Hartman and Bruck were adamant something be done now.
Incredibly, however, at first, they got basically the same king of response this time as they had last time from virtually all the rabbis in the Orthodox community.
"We went to several rabbis and nobody would step up and do anything," said Hartman.
"We approached every rav," adds Bruck. "They weren't surprised about it, they all knew about it and they all said no thanks, we don't want any involvement. They were not interested in dealing with it."
Which convinced the two sisters they had to go and talk to the community's leading halachic authority.
But wanting to make sure all aspects of the issue would be covered by those better versed in the area than they are, Hartman and Bruck asked a prominent rabbi, and Orthodox attorney and an Orthodox psychotherapist to go with them.
"They each said they'd let us know. But we never heard back from any of them. So we went ourselves."
"I told him I was not happy he didn't not get involved seven years ago and that he had to be involved this time," says Hartman. "I did not speak meekly but was adamant to get my point across. We explained to him, from a to z, how others had been victimized because things had not been put into place. He said he didn't know how to deal with it and we explained that wasn't an answer." And so Bruck and Harman spent hours explaining that pedophilia is a disease, explaining why it was so important the community be alerted that this goes on and had been going on, explaining the pain it causes its victims. They begged this rabbi to learn more, to do more. He said he would.
And, indeed, Hartman and Bruck are please that four rabbis, Rabbi Zev Cohen of Congregation Adas Yehurun, Rabbi Gedaliah Schwarts of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst of Agudath Israel of Illinois and Rabbi Avrohom Levin of Telshe Yeshiva have agreed to serve as the rabbinical advisory board of Project Shield, a new effort to more systematically deal with the issue of sexual abuse (see separate story).
Rabbi Cohen defends how the community's rabbis have dealt with the current perpetrator, saying he and three other rabbis have spent more than 300 hours on the case, forming a Beit Din to protect the victims by "confronting the perpetrator, making sure he was in counseling and issuing stringent guidelines to prevent any interactions with young boys." He says the community' should be proud of the "incredible amount of work that has been done to help the victims and their parents and ensure there are no future victims".
Rabbi Cohen adds that the community's rabbis should not be criticized in this instance and says that "if rabbis are not seen as strong in the eyes of the community, they don't have the ability to do anything and that doesn't benefit anyone."
Hartman and Bruck agree that Rabbi Cohen has been the most responsive rabbi in the community about this matter but not that not one rabbi, not even Cohen, has spoken from the pulpit about the issue. And that while he, and Rabbis Levin, Schwartz and Fuerst are trying to deal with the issue, the vast majority of Orthodox rabbis continue to do nothing.
"Our goal is to get the rabbis to work with us on this, not to read this article and get all upset," said Hartman. "Yes, a few rabbis have tried to do good and that's a big step and we are grateful, but we need more, we need a majority to get involved to protect our children.
"Some rabbis say they don't like the line that their attitude about this has been 'don't ask don't tell.' Well I'm sorry but that has been the majority of the rabbinical response."
And because that has been so, the rabbis have failed to let the community know about the issue.
"Why wasn't the community alerted about this school rebbe from the pulpit so that parents could take the necessary precautions," asks Hartman. "Why haven't rabbis gotten up in shul and said something?"
Indeed, Bruck confronted one rabbi and said, "you're the rabbi of a shul. Have you gotten up there and said anything to anyone? He said what do you want me to say? I used to go to his shul and he would talk about Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, talk about O.J. Simpson. I said to him you can talk
about it with your children. So he said to me, "I'm up for suggestions. Please."
While Hartman is please the four rabbis have joined her efforts, she notes that they still have not sat down together as a group and talked about a plan of action. "And I understand that, they are very busy and have a lot of immediate things to deal with. But you can't wait until something else happens. We need the rabbis to be pro-active, to react now and plan now. We can't wait for later, we must prevent there from being a later."
She notes that one rabbi has said that because it happened in her family, she is over reacting to the situation. "No, I've under-reacted, I waited too long to do something, I should have done more seven years ago. The rabbis are talking now about the dangers of the Internet. Well they also need to talk
and educate about this danger."
While Hartman is hopeful they will, some still have their doubts. A therapist involved in the issue says that she put together a bunch of materials about child sexual abuse for the community's leading halachic authority to read and brought it to his house. "He said that he didn't want the material and that the guy's not going to do it again because he's a frum man."
Brucks notes the same king of silence has happened not only in the school where the incidents occurred but in all the Orthodox days schools. "They don't have a clue. Every school and ever principal was called and asked if someone could come in and talk to the parents, to the teachers, to the students and every single one said no, said they felt no one was talking about it and to do so would be to open up a Pandora's box.
"Even more amazing, they haven't even talked to the class whose members were molested."
Why? First and foremost, they don't want it getting out into the public world. The last thing they want is that people should know it happens in the frum community. Then there's the fact that people don't want to believe it happens. There are still lots of people who don't believe what the first perpetrator did is true or they say it's lashon hara (gossip) to talk about it. It's not an issue anyone wants to get involved with, it's easier to say it's a rumor, nobody can prove it. And so they just deny it".
The problem with the rabbis not publicly acknowledging what has occurred, says Hartman, is that it aids the feeling of "most people who don't believe the perpetrator is guilty. After all, up until this point he has been a respected person, so unless you have the facts, but the facts are supposed to be kept confidential to protect the victims and since no one wants to come out and say, 'yes I was sexually abused and this is exactly what happened to me,' you don't have the facts and so it is dismissed as hearsay. Those in the community who know the perpetrator, say they've never been molested so it's probably not true. That's the point. These perpetrators lead a double life so why believe this blind information when I know this guy, he's a nice frum man in our community."
And so the perpetrator gets away with his crime and the victims pay even more.
Indeed, the Department of Children and Family Services began its investigation because one o the boys molested at the school called their hotline to file charges against the rabbi and, says Hartman, "this kid is being persecuted. Kids in that class love their rebbe and so this victim is being penalized for pressing charges, his life is being made a living hell."
Beyond that, the rabbi is being protected to see that he stays out of jail and his story kept out of the newspapers.
Why are the rabbis working so hard to make sure he doesn't stand trail, let alone go to jail? "Because it didn't happen to their kids," said Bruck, "it's as simple as that." The perpetrator's attorney, Hal Garfinkel, refused to comment on any aspect of the case when called by the Chicago Jewish News.
Hartman says the community's fear of the story being public is putting the concern very much on the wrong thing. "I brought one of the victims, now grown up, to the office of one of the rabbis and he said he felt such rage he wanted to murder the perpetrator. The parents of another victim told the
rabbi they wanted to kill the man.
"When a victim voices these raw emotions, the rabbis should be shaking in their boots. But they did nothing, all they were focused on was keeping it out of the papers and the perpetrators out of jail. I finally said, 'are you guys waiting for someone to actually shoot the perpetrator how are you going to hide that from the newspapers?"
To not acknowledge what has gone on, says Bruck, "you destroy victims' lives over and over. Think about those who have poured their hearts out -- and yet who see nothing being done about it, who walk through the community and there the perpetrator is, go to the pizza shop and there he is, so they are victimized over and over again and the rabbinic reaction is nothing. The victims continue to be pained that it is not being publicly acknowledged
that what the perpetrator did was wrong. Meanwhile, the perpetrator, whose life isn't easy, but still he's managing to go to shul, his life goes on, people want to help his family."
Not that there shouldn't be compassion for his family, says Hartman, who calls them victims, too. "I know his wife, she's a very find young woman. Her life is over, her life is hell and will be forever, whether she stays with him or not. He destroyed lots of lives and you have to have sympathy for that. They have eight children. No one knows what goes on behind her closed doors, but I can guarantee, it ain't a pretty site and my heart goes out to her. She and her children are big victims in this."
But, says Harman, first and foremost are the victims this rabbi sexually abused. She calls them "the faceless victims."
"In the case of his family, the community knows who the victims are and so they want to do for them. But everyone seems to be forgetting the faceless victims, these innocent children who nobody knows, who are being left out to hang, to live with this pain the rest of their lives."
Which is why Hartman and Bruck believe it is so important people talk about this, know about it, that people let their rabbis know they expect them to act.
"I think it's pretty pathetic that the rabbis can't work together to protect our innocent children," says Hartman. She notes that the hot issue at the moment in Orthodox circles is something being labeled 'Children at Risk', referring to the increasing number of Orthodox youth who are leaving the community, often getting into drugs and other destructive behaviors.
"You have all the rabbis speaking from the pulpit about 'children at risk'. I think if someone did a little research to see how many of those children were sexually molested, it might be a pretty eye-opening experience. Children do not come from ice home and become so deep rooted in anger and frustration and so self-destructive unless something pretty horrible has happened to them.
"Everybody talks about the children, the children, being there for thechildren, well then when a child or their parent comes to you and say someone has really hurt my child, then do something about it. It's very nice to preach about 'children at risk' but helping children who are victims of sexual abuse is at the core and nobody is responding to it."
And there is no excuse for that, says Bruck. "This happens everywhere, in the every community. It doesn't happen more in the Orthodox community, actually it probably happens less, but it does happen."
Which is why Hartman and Bruck are doing what they're doing, saying what they're saying, because the truth is they wish they didn't have to.
"There is no question some will be unhappy this is being talked about publicly," says Bruck, "but it's either say nothing or say and do something to make things better. People don't want us to talk about it., but that's the only way something gets done."
This is something that goes to the heart of what all of us are supposed to be all about," adds Hartman. "Never in a million years did we think we'd be sitting here talking about this. I am part of this community. Every person in my family has dedicated themselves to being a responsible member of the community and to making it a better community. It is not our desire to tear it apart in any way, shape or form. Our goal is to unite it and make it better.
"Maybe 25 years ago, this kind of thing wasn't discussed. But we discuss it now. This is not going to disappear, not going to go away by itself. So you have to be ready to deal with it."
And you start to do that, she says, by "putting a face on it. We have to give it legitimacy, make it a reality, get our leaders and the community to take it seriously. We need the rabbis to sit down and get educated about it, understand the irreparable damage these perpetrators do to their victims.
"People want to believe they can trust their spiritual leaders to deal with this problem, but if nothing is done, this is a bomb waiting to explode in everyone's face."
_________________________________________________________________________________
Jewish Community Grapples With Sex Abuse
By Stephanie Saul
Newsday - May 26, 2003, 8:10 PM EDT
Newsday - May 26, 2003, 8:10 PM EDT
This is the first in a three-part series
It was the sound of ripping cloth, they said, that woke them up.On an August night in the Catskills, with summer camp almost over, the boys had fallen asleep in their bunkhouse, exhausted from play and religious study. Only minutes later, they would later testify in court, the noise awakened them. Then came mysterious movements in the dark cabin. The campers lay still. Why was a human figure hovering over the bed of a 10-year-old Woodmere boy?
The terrified boy blurted out his allegation to a camp counselor almost a day later: Someone, he said, had torn open the seat of his pajamas and sexually abused him.
The boy's parents were called to camp more than a day later, but police were not notified.
"We all concurred that considering the trauma that would possibly result from further action, it would be best not to take any additional action," according to the camp's notes, later filed in court in a civil suit. A state Department of Health sanitarian later found that the camp violated state regulations by not reporting the accusation.
Police learned of the allegations two months later, alerted by a psychologist who was treating the boy. The boy's mother later told a state official she felt pressured to remain silent, according to state health department records. After all, the alleged abuser and the camp officials were revered religious leaders.
The accused was eventually acquitted by a judge, who said "contradictory and sometimes retracting statements" left him unclear about what happened. The camp suggests that the alleged incident was fabricated.
After more than a year of charges and disclosures concerning sexual abuse of young people by Catholic priests, the story may sound familiar. But the camp, Mogen Avraham, is a popular summer retreat in Bethel for Orthodox Jewish children. And the accused was not a priest, but a teaching rabbi from Forest Hills.
The alleged 1998 incident at Camp Mogen Avraham is just one in a growing dossier of allegations that rabbis, cantors and other Jewish religious leaders have abused children and teenagers in their care, a Newsday investigation has found.
In sheer numbers, the problem is unlikely to rival the Catholic Church's, since priests outnumber rabbis by roughly nine to one. While there is no data on the number of clergy with sexual disorders, experts say that, anecdotally, the problem does not seem as severe in the rabbinate as in the priesthood, even in relative terms.
Even so, some rabbis call the sexual abuse allegations a "crisis," and religious organizations are grappling with ways to handle it.
"We have a huge problem on our hands, a problem that is just beginning to be addressed in religious circles," Vicki Polin, a psychotherapist, said in recent testimony to the Maryland legislature.
Polin, who is Jewish and calls herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, runs The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based clearinghouse that tracks sexual abuse allegations against Jewish religious leaders. The center's Web site lists about 40 alleged cases of abuse involving rabbis and cantors. As with the Catholic scandals, Jewish victims say they still struggle years, even decades, later with this betrayal of trust.
"I can honestly say that he ruined not only my Bas-Mitzvah, but my faith in Judaism," wrote one woman, now 30, referring to Rabbi Sidney Goldenberg. In a letter to California prosecutors, the woman said Goldenberg, then a cantor, made lewd comments and rubbed her thigh in her parents' home in Seaford in 1985. At the time, he was supposed to be helping her prepare for her bat mitzvah, the joyous and solemn religious celebration when a Jewish girl turns 13.
Goldenberg was convicted in 1997 of abusing a 12-year-old California bat mitzvah student, after investigators uncovered a 27-year trail of complaints by girls against him. He served three years and is now living on Coney Island, according to police.
Like the Goldenberg case, the abuse allegations tend to have common elements, including some familiar from the Catholic scandals:
Children and in some cases parents are reluctant to accuse respected clergymen. When they do, they are often disbelieved, dismissed, even derided.
"You have to understand the extent to which the guys in the school looked up to [the rabbi]," says one man, now 38, who says he was abused as a teenager by a rabbi now teaching in Israel. "He was beyond question."
And another rabbi recalls dismissing several girls' complaints against Goldenberg as "some giggly thing."
Religious authorities fail to report abuse charges to the police. Among strictly observant Orthodox Jews, this tendency is bolstered by the ancient doctrine of mesira, which prohibits Jews from informing on other Jews to secular authorities, a legacy of centuries of oppression of Jews in many countries.
When religious leaders try to investigate cases and prevent abusers from having contact with children, their efforts often fail. "Few rabbis have any training in recognizing abuse, and the rabbinical courts have no investigative arm," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, the spiritual counselor to students at Yeshiva University.
Alleged abusers continue to operate freely by moving among congregations, states, even countries. Avrohom Mondrowitz, a self-styled rabbi who once had a popular radio show in Brooklyn, is living openly and teaching in a Jerusalem college although he is wanted on charges of sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys, aged 10 to 16. If he ever returns to the United States, he will be arrested, according to the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.
Many of the alleged abusers were popular, even charismatic leaders, who were thought to be particularly good in relating to young people. Rabbi Baruch Lanner, convicted last year of endangering the welfare of two girls at a New Jersey yeshiva, sidestepped abuse allegations for years, in part because of his reputation as a dynamic figure in an Orthodox youth program.
Unlike the Catholic Church, Jewish authority is not centralized, but various groups within the branches of Judaism have begun to strengthen anti-abuse policies for their members.
At its annual meeting, which starts today in Rye, the Rabbinical Council of America, an organization of 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, features programs on curbing abuse, including one entitled "Rabbinic Behavior: Confronting a Crisis of Accountability."
"We're trying to establish that inappropriate behavior is inexcusable," said Rabbi Hershel Billet, president of the organization and rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere.
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a psychotherapist who is also the Orthodox Union's executive vice president, said he hopes the rabbinical council will make a firm commitment during the meeting "to develop a real, real tight program" combating sexual abuse.
The rabbinical council is expected to discuss ways to adjudicate abuse allegations against its members, with penalties that include ouster.
Sources within the organization say that the impetus for the panel's work includes old abuse allegations against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Kew Gardens Hills, which he has repeatedly denied, and the recent arrest of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum of Highland Park, N.J.
Kestenbaum, a chaplaincy leader for the New York Board of Rabbis, was charged in February with endangering the welfare of a minor after allegedly discussing sex with an undercover police officer posing as a teenage girl in a chat room called "I Love Older Men." Kestenbaum has pleaded not guilty.
Rabbis concerned about sex abuse say accusations against a rabbi are often handled quietly, or not at all. Accused rabbis go on hiatus briefly, then revive their ministries in other congregations, even other countries in the far-flung Diaspora.
One of those was Rabbi Matis Weinberg. Accused of sexually abusing students at his California yeshiva two decades ago, he is said to have agreed to leave teaching. But Weinberg resurrected his teaching career in Israel. When Yeshiva University in Manhattan recently unearthed the allegations against Weinberg, the New York school severed its ties to the Jerusalem college where Weinberg had lectured until recently.
Weinberg has never been charged with a crime and has denied the former students' allegations. Through a friend, he declined to discuss the charges with Newsday.
The allegations against Weinberg have been widely reported in the Jewish press and have helped bring the issue to the fore in recent months.
Like the Orthodox rabbis' council, representatives of other branches of Judaism say they are taking steps to combat sexual abuse.
"I would rather this not become an epidemic and I think what we need to do is take affirmative steps to guide people before they make mistakes," said Rabbi Jerome Epstein of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the lay arm of the Conservative movement. Epstein said the group's committee on congregational standards is currently working on a "best practices" document.
Rabbi Steven Rosenberg of McAllen, Texas, formerly the leader of the Jewish Center of Bay Shore, said his Conservative congregation already has adopted such rules.
"If I have a bat mitzvah in my office, the door is never closed," said Rosenberg, who also tells his 23 religion school teachers "they are not allowed to touch students, not a pat, not a hug."
"It is very important for me for my congregants to know: That kind of behavior -- we will not tolerate it," said Rosenberg.
Rosenberg was sensitized by the case against Sidney Goldenberg, the former cantor, who had worked at the Bay Shore synagogue before moving to California.
Many rabbis say their groups would always notify police about abuse although their rules usually do not spell this out. Such notification was one of the remedies embraced by Roman Catholic bishops in the priest abuse scandal. And Reform rabbis are in the process of revising their ethics code to include such a requirement, according to Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an Orthodox group, does have a policy requiring that police be notified, an outgrowth of its scandal involving Lanner, a longtime youth leader with the group.
In that case, a religious court called a bet din concluded in 1989 that the most serious charges against Lanner were unfounded, clearing the way for his continued youth work. Last year, more than a dozen years later, he was convicted in New Jersey on abuse-related charges.
Orthodox Jews frequently rely on the batei din, but Blau, a member of the Lanner bet din, has become an outspoken critic of the religious court system.
For one thing, he said, judges in the religious courts often know the accused, making fair decisions difficult. In addition, he said that perjury before a bet din is rarely punished.
Appearing in February before dozens of students in the main study hall at Yeshiva University, Blau and the two other members of the Lanner bet din issued an extraordinary public apology for their role in allowing Lanner to continue unchecked for so many years.
"We must do everything in our power to protect potential victims from abuse," the apology said. "This includes reporting accusations of abuse to Jewish and, at times, to secular authorities."
Such a secular-reporting requirement is controversial among some Orthodox groups, partly because it appears to run counter to the doctrine called mesira.
In ancient times, one who violated the doctrine and reported a fellow Jew to secular authorities could be killed on sight. Today, the punishment is generally ostracism in the community.
The vast majority of rabbis agree that mesira is overridden when there is imminent danger to possible future victims, but Blau says the taboo remains, particularly among the most traditional Orthodox.
Civil authorities who seek to act against rabbinic abuse often become frustrated by the reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Prosecutors in Sullivan County complained during the case that their witnesses faced pressure when they tried to prosecute Yaakov Weiner, the teaching rabbi acquitted in the Mogen Avraham case.
"It was a bitter pill for me," remembers Tom Cawley, the former Sullivan County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Mogen Avraham case. "They sent their kid to camp up here in Bethel and thought he'd be taken care of. Someone was taken care of, all right, but it wasn't him."
Weiner, who has taught in several yeshivas throughout the metropolitan area, consistently denied the charges. Attempts to reach him through one of his lawyers were unsuccessful.
The boy's mother and father, a rabbi himself, would not discuss the case with Newsday. But camp and State Health Department records filed in court indicate that the parents were not told of the alleged abuse until nearly 48 hours after the boy spoke of it, while the 36-year-old Weiner's father, a rabbi well-known in the Queens Orthodox community, was notified sooner.
Contacted recently, the camp's current executive director, Moshe Wein, defended the camp's handling of the accusation, saying, "There's no evidence to indicate that an incident took place." He added, "This may be one of those cases in which a child lied."
Lawyers for Weiner at his bench trial made much of contradictions in the boy's statements. But the most confusing testimony came from the alleged victim's bunkmates.
One of the boys reversed his story between the time he spoke to police and the trial several months later, Cawley said in court.
"We believe that there was pressure placed on the victim and children's families to get them not to testify," said Sullivan County District Attorney Stephen Lungen in a recent telephone interview. "There was a child who could have substantiated what was said, and that family would not cooperate."
The entire matter left Sullivan County Judge Frank Labuda confused.
"It is clear in the evening hours of August 8 and the morning of August 9, two years ago, something happened at bunk 3 Gimel bunk... " he said in his January 2000 ruling. But Labuda concluded that trial testimony "does not create a clear picture for this court of exactly what happened in Gimel bunk nor who did it."
He found Weiner not guilty.
The terrified boy blurted out his allegation to a camp counselor almost a day later: Someone, he said, had torn open the seat of his pajamas and sexually abused him.
The boy's parents were called to camp more than a day later, but police were not notified.
"We all concurred that considering the trauma that would possibly result from further action, it would be best not to take any additional action," according to the camp's notes, later filed in court in a civil suit. A state Department of Health sanitarian later found that the camp violated state regulations by not reporting the accusation.
Police learned of the allegations two months later, alerted by a psychologist who was treating the boy. The boy's mother later told a state official she felt pressured to remain silent, according to state health department records. After all, the alleged abuser and the camp officials were revered religious leaders.
The accused was eventually acquitted by a judge, who said "contradictory and sometimes retracting statements" left him unclear about what happened. The camp suggests that the alleged incident was fabricated.
After more than a year of charges and disclosures concerning sexual abuse of young people by Catholic priests, the story may sound familiar. But the camp, Mogen Avraham, is a popular summer retreat in Bethel for Orthodox Jewish children. And the accused was not a priest, but a teaching rabbi from Forest Hills.
The alleged 1998 incident at Camp Mogen Avraham is just one in a growing dossier of allegations that rabbis, cantors and other Jewish religious leaders have abused children and teenagers in their care, a Newsday investigation has found.
In sheer numbers, the problem is unlikely to rival the Catholic Church's, since priests outnumber rabbis by roughly nine to one. While there is no data on the number of clergy with sexual disorders, experts say that, anecdotally, the problem does not seem as severe in the rabbinate as in the priesthood, even in relative terms.
Even so, some rabbis call the sexual abuse allegations a "crisis," and religious organizations are grappling with ways to handle it.
"We have a huge problem on our hands, a problem that is just beginning to be addressed in religious circles," Vicki Polin, a psychotherapist, said in recent testimony to the Maryland legislature.
Polin, who is Jewish and calls herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, runs The Awareness Center, a Baltimore-based clearinghouse that tracks sexual abuse allegations against Jewish religious leaders. The center's Web site lists about 40 alleged cases of abuse involving rabbis and cantors. As with the Catholic scandals, Jewish victims say they still struggle years, even decades, later with this betrayal of trust.
"I can honestly say that he ruined not only my Bas-Mitzvah, but my faith in Judaism," wrote one woman, now 30, referring to Rabbi Sidney Goldenberg. In a letter to California prosecutors, the woman said Goldenberg, then a cantor, made lewd comments and rubbed her thigh in her parents' home in Seaford in 1985. At the time, he was supposed to be helping her prepare for her bat mitzvah, the joyous and solemn religious celebration when a Jewish girl turns 13.
Goldenberg was convicted in 1997 of abusing a 12-year-old California bat mitzvah student, after investigators uncovered a 27-year trail of complaints by girls against him. He served three years and is now living on Coney Island, according to police.
Like the Goldenberg case, the abuse allegations tend to have common elements, including some familiar from the Catholic scandals:
Children and in some cases parents are reluctant to accuse respected clergymen. When they do, they are often disbelieved, dismissed, even derided.
"You have to understand the extent to which the guys in the school looked up to [the rabbi]," says one man, now 38, who says he was abused as a teenager by a rabbi now teaching in Israel. "He was beyond question."
And another rabbi recalls dismissing several girls' complaints against Goldenberg as "some giggly thing."
Religious authorities fail to report abuse charges to the police. Among strictly observant Orthodox Jews, this tendency is bolstered by the ancient doctrine of mesira, which prohibits Jews from informing on other Jews to secular authorities, a legacy of centuries of oppression of Jews in many countries.
When religious leaders try to investigate cases and prevent abusers from having contact with children, their efforts often fail. "Few rabbis have any training in recognizing abuse, and the rabbinical courts have no investigative arm," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, the spiritual counselor to students at Yeshiva University.
Alleged abusers continue to operate freely by moving among congregations, states, even countries. Avrohom Mondrowitz, a self-styled rabbi who once had a popular radio show in Brooklyn, is living openly and teaching in a Jerusalem college although he is wanted on charges of sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys, aged 10 to 16. If he ever returns to the United States, he will be arrested, according to the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.
Many of the alleged abusers were popular, even charismatic leaders, who were thought to be particularly good in relating to young people. Rabbi Baruch Lanner, convicted last year of endangering the welfare of two girls at a New Jersey yeshiva, sidestepped abuse allegations for years, in part because of his reputation as a dynamic figure in an Orthodox youth program.
Unlike the Catholic Church, Jewish authority is not centralized, but various groups within the branches of Judaism have begun to strengthen anti-abuse policies for their members.
At its annual meeting, which starts today in Rye, the Rabbinical Council of America, an organization of 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, features programs on curbing abuse, including one entitled "Rabbinic Behavior: Confronting a Crisis of Accountability."
"We're trying to establish that inappropriate behavior is inexcusable," said Rabbi Hershel Billet, president of the organization and rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere.
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a psychotherapist who is also the Orthodox Union's executive vice president, said he hopes the rabbinical council will make a firm commitment during the meeting "to develop a real, real tight program" combating sexual abuse.
The rabbinical council is expected to discuss ways to adjudicate abuse allegations against its members, with penalties that include ouster.
Sources within the organization say that the impetus for the panel's work includes old abuse allegations against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Kew Gardens Hills, which he has repeatedly denied, and the recent arrest of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum of Highland Park, N.J.
Kestenbaum, a chaplaincy leader for the New York Board of Rabbis, was charged in February with endangering the welfare of a minor after allegedly discussing sex with an undercover police officer posing as a teenage girl in a chat room called "I Love Older Men." Kestenbaum has pleaded not guilty.
Rabbis concerned about sex abuse say accusations against a rabbi are often handled quietly, or not at all. Accused rabbis go on hiatus briefly, then revive their ministries in other congregations, even other countries in the far-flung Diaspora.
One of those was Rabbi Matis Weinberg. Accused of sexually abusing students at his California yeshiva two decades ago, he is said to have agreed to leave teaching. But Weinberg resurrected his teaching career in Israel. When Yeshiva University in Manhattan recently unearthed the allegations against Weinberg, the New York school severed its ties to the Jerusalem college where Weinberg had lectured until recently.
Weinberg has never been charged with a crime and has denied the former students' allegations. Through a friend, he declined to discuss the charges with Newsday.
The allegations against Weinberg have been widely reported in the Jewish press and have helped bring the issue to the fore in recent months.
Like the Orthodox rabbis' council, representatives of other branches of Judaism say they are taking steps to combat sexual abuse.
"I would rather this not become an epidemic and I think what we need to do is take affirmative steps to guide people before they make mistakes," said Rabbi Jerome Epstein of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the lay arm of the Conservative movement. Epstein said the group's committee on congregational standards is currently working on a "best practices" document.
Rabbi Steven Rosenberg of McAllen, Texas, formerly the leader of the Jewish Center of Bay Shore, said his Conservative congregation already has adopted such rules.
"If I have a bat mitzvah in my office, the door is never closed," said Rosenberg, who also tells his 23 religion school teachers "they are not allowed to touch students, not a pat, not a hug."
"It is very important for me for my congregants to know: That kind of behavior -- we will not tolerate it," said Rosenberg.
Rosenberg was sensitized by the case against Sidney Goldenberg, the former cantor, who had worked at the Bay Shore synagogue before moving to California.
Many rabbis say their groups would always notify police about abuse although their rules usually do not spell this out. Such notification was one of the remedies embraced by Roman Catholic bishops in the priest abuse scandal. And Reform rabbis are in the process of revising their ethics code to include such a requirement, according to Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an Orthodox group, does have a policy requiring that police be notified, an outgrowth of its scandal involving Lanner, a longtime youth leader with the group.
In that case, a religious court called a bet din concluded in 1989 that the most serious charges against Lanner were unfounded, clearing the way for his continued youth work. Last year, more than a dozen years later, he was convicted in New Jersey on abuse-related charges.
Orthodox Jews frequently rely on the batei din, but Blau, a member of the Lanner bet din, has become an outspoken critic of the religious court system.
For one thing, he said, judges in the religious courts often know the accused, making fair decisions difficult. In addition, he said that perjury before a bet din is rarely punished.
Appearing in February before dozens of students in the main study hall at Yeshiva University, Blau and the two other members of the Lanner bet din issued an extraordinary public apology for their role in allowing Lanner to continue unchecked for so many years.
"We must do everything in our power to protect potential victims from abuse," the apology said. "This includes reporting accusations of abuse to Jewish and, at times, to secular authorities."
Such a secular-reporting requirement is controversial among some Orthodox groups, partly because it appears to run counter to the doctrine called mesira.
In ancient times, one who violated the doctrine and reported a fellow Jew to secular authorities could be killed on sight. Today, the punishment is generally ostracism in the community.
The vast majority of rabbis agree that mesira is overridden when there is imminent danger to possible future victims, but Blau says the taboo remains, particularly among the most traditional Orthodox.
Civil authorities who seek to act against rabbinic abuse often become frustrated by the reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Prosecutors in Sullivan County complained during the case that their witnesses faced pressure when they tried to prosecute Yaakov Weiner, the teaching rabbi acquitted in the Mogen Avraham case.
"It was a bitter pill for me," remembers Tom Cawley, the former Sullivan County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Mogen Avraham case. "They sent their kid to camp up here in Bethel and thought he'd be taken care of. Someone was taken care of, all right, but it wasn't him."
Weiner, who has taught in several yeshivas throughout the metropolitan area, consistently denied the charges. Attempts to reach him through one of his lawyers were unsuccessful.
The boy's mother and father, a rabbi himself, would not discuss the case with Newsday. But camp and State Health Department records filed in court indicate that the parents were not told of the alleged abuse until nearly 48 hours after the boy spoke of it, while the 36-year-old Weiner's father, a rabbi well-known in the Queens Orthodox community, was notified sooner.
Contacted recently, the camp's current executive director, Moshe Wein, defended the camp's handling of the accusation, saying, "There's no evidence to indicate that an incident took place." He added, "This may be one of those cases in which a child lied."
Lawyers for Weiner at his bench trial made much of contradictions in the boy's statements. But the most confusing testimony came from the alleged victim's bunkmates.
One of the boys reversed his story between the time he spoke to police and the trial several months later, Cawley said in court.
"We believe that there was pressure placed on the victim and children's families to get them not to testify," said Sullivan County District Attorney Stephen Lungen in a recent telephone interview. "There was a child who could have substantiated what was said, and that family would not cooperate."
The entire matter left Sullivan County Judge Frank Labuda confused.
"It is clear in the evening hours of August 8 and the morning of August 9, two years ago, something happened at bunk 3 Gimel bunk... " he said in his January 2000 ruling. But Labuda concluded that trial testimony "does not create a clear picture for this court of exactly what happened in Gimel bunk nor who did it."
He found Weiner not guilty.
_________________________________________________________________________________
A 'Crisis' For Jewish Leaders: Struggling with allegations against rabbis of sex abuse Series
By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer
Newsday - May 28, 2003
Newsday - May 28, 2003
First of two parts.
It was the sound of ripping cloth, they said, that woke them up.
On an August night in the Catskills, with summer camp almost over,
the boys had fallen asleep in their bunkhouse, exhausted from play and
religious study. Only minutes later, they would later testify in court,
the noise awakened them. Then came mysterious movements in the dark
cabin. The campers lay still. Why was a human figure hovering over the
bed of a 10-year-old Woodmere boy?
The
terrified boy blurted out his allegation to a camp counselor almost a
day later: Someone, he said, had torn open the seat of his pajamas and
sexually abused him.
The boy's parents were called to camp more than a day later, but police were not notified.
"We all concurred that considering the trauma that would possibly
result from further action, it would be best not to take any additional
action," according to the camp's notes, later filed in court in a civil
suit. A state Department of Health sanitarian later found that the camp
violated state regulations by not reporting the accusation.
Police learned of the allegations two months later, alerted by a
psychologist who was treating the boy. The boy's mother later told a
state official she felt pressured to remain silent, according to state
health department records. After all, the alleged abuser and the camp
officials were revered religious leaders.
The
accused was eventually acquitted by a judge, who said "contradictory and
sometimes retracting statements" left him unclear about what happened.
The camp suggests that the alleged incident was fabricated.
After more than a year of charges and disclosures concerning sexual
abuse of young people by Catholic priests, the story may sound familiar.
But the camp, Mogen Avraham, is a popular summer retreat in Bethel for
Orthodox Jewish children. And the accused was not a priest, but a
teaching rabbi from Forest Hills.
The alleged
1998 incident at Camp Mogen Avraham is just one in a growing dossier of
allegations that rabbis, cantors and other Jewish religious leaders have
abused children and teenagers in their care, a Newsday investigation
has found.
In sheer numbers, the problem is
unlikely to rival the Catholic Church's, since priests outnumber rabbis
by roughly nine to one. While there is no data on the number of clergy
with sexual disorders, experts say that, anecdotally, the problem does
not seem as severe in the rabbinate as in the priesthood, even in
relative terms.
Even so, some rabbis call the
sexual abuse allegations a "crisis," and religious organizations are
grappling with ways to handle it.
"We have a
huge problem on our hands, a problem that is just beginning to be
addressed in religious circles," Vicki Polin, a psychotherapist, said in
recent testimony to the Maryland legislature.
Polin, who is Jewish and calls herself a survivor of childhood sexual
abuse, runs The Awareness Center, a Baltimore- based clearinghouse that
tracks sexual abuse allegations against Jewish religious leaders. The
center's Web site lists about 40 alleged cases of abuse involving rabbis
and cantors. As with the Catholic scandals, Jewish victims say they
still struggle years, even decades, later with this betrayal of trust.
"I can honestly say that he ruined not only my Bas-Mitzvah, but my
faith in Judaism," wrote one woman, now 30, referring to Rabbi Sidney
Goldenberg. In a letter to California prosecutors, the woman said
Goldenberg, then a cantor, made lewd comments and rubbed her thigh in
her parents' home in Seaford in 1985. At the time, he was supposed to be
helping her prepare for her bat mitzvah, the joyous and solemn
religious celebration when a Jewish girl turns 13. Goldenberg was
convicted in 1997 of abusing a 12-year-old California bat mitzvah
student, after investigators uncovered a 27-year trail of complaints by
girls against him. He served three years and is now living on Coney
Island, according to police.
Like the
Goldenberg case, the abuse allegations tend to have common elements,
including some familiar from the Catholic scandals:
Children and in some cases parents are reluctant to accuse respected
clergymen. When they do, they are often disbelieved, dismissed, even
derided.
"You have to understand the extent to
which the guys in the school looked up to [the rabbi]," says one man,
now 38, who says he was abused as a teenager by a rabbi now teaching in
Israel. "He was beyond question."
And another rabbi recalls dismissing several girls' complaints against Goldenberg as "some giggly thing."
Religious authorities fail to report abuse charges to the police.
Among strictly observant Orthodox Jews, this tendency is bolstered by
the ancient doctrine of mesira, which prohibits Jews from informing on
other Jews to secular authorities, a legacy of centuries of oppression
of Jews in many countries.
When religious
leaders try to investigate cases and prevent abusers from having contact
with children, their efforts often fail. "Few rabbis have any training
in recognizing abuse, and the rabbinical courts have no investigative
arm," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, the spiritual counselor to students at
Yeshiva University.
Alleged abusers continue to operate freely by moving among congregations, states, even countries. Avrohom Mondrowitz,
a self- styled rabbi who once had a popular radio show in Brooklyn, is
living openly and teaching in a Jerusalem college although he is wanted
on charges of sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys, aged 10 to 16. If he
ever returns to the United States, he will be arrested, according to the
office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.
Many of the alleged abusers were popular, even charismatic leaders,
who were thought to be particularly good in relating to young people.
Rabbi Baruch Lanner, convicted last year of endangering the welfare of
two girls at a New Jersey yeshiva, sidestepped abuse allegations for
years, in part because of his reputation as a dynamic figure in an
Orthodox youth program.
Unlike the Catholic
Church, Jewish authority is not centralized, but various groups within
the branches of Judaism have begun to strengthen anti-abuse policies for
their members.
At its annual meeting, which
starts today in Rye, the Rabbinical Council of America, an organization
of 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, features programs on curbing abuse, including
one entitled "Rabbinic Behavior: Confronting a Crisis of
Accountability."
"We're trying to establish
that inappropriate behavior is inexcusable," said Rabbi Hershel Billet,
president of the organization and rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere.
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a psychotherapist who is also the Orthodox
Union's executive vice president, said he hopes the rabbinical council
will make a firm commitment during the meeting "to develop a real, real
tight program" combating sexual abuse.
The
rabbinical council is expected to discuss ways to adjudicate abuse
allegations against its members, with penalties that include ouster.
Sources within the organization say that the impetus for the panel's
work includes old abuse allegations against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Kew
Gardens Hills, which he has repeatedly denied, and the recent arrest of
Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum of Highland Park, N.J.
Kestenbaum, a chaplaincy leader for the New York Board of Rabbis, was
charged in February with endangering the welfare of a minor after
allegedly discussing sex with an undercover police officer posing as a
teenage girl in a chat room called "I Love Older Men." Kestenbaum has
pleaded not guilty.
Rabbis concerned about sex
abuse say accusations against a rabbi are often handled quietly, or not
at all. Accused rabbis go on hiatus briefly, then revive their
ministries in other congregations, even other countries in the far-flung
Diaspora.
One of those was Rabbi Matis
Weinberg. Accused of sexually abusing students at his California yeshiva
two decades ago, he is said to have agreed to leave teaching. But
Weinberg resurrected his teaching career in Israel. When Yeshiva
University in Manhattan recently unearthed the allegations against
Weinberg, the New York school severed its ties to the Jerusalem college
where Weinberg had lectured until recently.
Weinberg has never been charged with a crime and has denied the former
students' allegations. Through a friend, he declined to discuss the
charges with Newsday.
The allegations against
Weinberg have been widely reported in the Jewish press and have helped
bring the issue to the fore in recent months.
Like the Orthodox rabbis' council, representatives of other branches of
Judaism say they are taking steps to combat sexual abuse.
"I would rather this not become an epidemic and I think what we need
to do is take affirmative steps to guide people before they make
mistakes," said Rabbi Jerome Epstein of the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, the lay arm of the Conservative movement. Epstein
said the group's committee on congregational standards is currently
working on a "best practices" document.
Rabbi
Steven Rosenberg of McAllen, Texas, formerly the leader of the Jewish
Center of Bay Shore, said his Conservative congregation already has
adopted such rules.
"If I have a bat mitzvah
in my office, the door is never closed," said Rosenberg, who also tells
his 23 religion school teachers "they are not allowed to touch students,
not a pat, not a hug."
"It is very important for me for my congregants to know: That kind of behavior - we will not tolerate it," said Rosenberg.
Rosenberg was sensitized by the case against Sidney Goldenberg, the
former cantor, who had worked at the Bay Shore synagogue before moving
to California.
Many rabbis say their groups
would always notify police about abuse although their rules usually do
not spell this out. Such notification was one of the remedies embraced
by Roman Catholic bishops in the priest abuse scandal. And Reform rabbis
are in the process of revising their ethics code to include such a
requirement, according to Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president
of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an Orthodox group, does have
a policy requiring that police be notified, an outgrowth of its scandal
involving Lanner, a longtime youth leader with the group.
In that case, a religious court called a bet din concluded in 1989
that the most serious charges against Lanner were unfounded, clearing
the way for his continued youth work. Last year, more than a dozen years
later, he was convicted in New Jersey on abuse- related charges.
Orthodox Jews frequently rely on the batei din, but Blau, a member
of the Lanner bet din, has become an outspoken critic of the religious
court system.
For one thing, he said, judges in the religious courts often know the accused, making fair decisions difficult.
In addition, he said that perjury before a bet din is rarely punished.
Appearing in February before dozens of students in the main study
hall at Yeshiva University, Blau and the two other members of the Lanner
bet din issued an extraordinary public apology for their role in
allowing Lanner to continue unchecked for so many years.
"We must do everything in our power to protect potential victims
from abuse," the apology said. "This includes reporting accusations of
abuse to Jewish and, at times, to secular authorities."
Such a secular-reporting requirement is controversial among some
Orthodox groups, partly because it appears to run counter to the
doctrine called mesira.
In ancient times, one
who violated the doctrine and reported a fellow Jew to secular
authorities could be killed on sight. Today, the punishment is generally
ostracism in the community.
The vast majority
of rabbis agree that mesira is overridden when there is imminent danger
to possible future victims, but Blau says the taboo remains,
particularly among the most traditional Orthodox.
Civil authorities who seek to act against rabbinic abuse often become frustrated by the reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Prosecutors in Sullivan County complained during the case that their
witnesses faced pressure when they tried to prosecute Yaakov Weiner,
the teaching rabbi acquitted in the Mogen Avraham case.
"It was a bitter pill for me," remembers Tom Cawley, the former
Sullivan County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Mogen
Avraham case. "They sent their kid to camp up here in Bethel and thought
he'd be taken care of. Someone was taken care of, all right, but it
wasn't him."
Weiner, who has taught in several
yeshivas throughout the metropolitan area, consistently denied the
charges. Attempts to reach him through one of his lawyers were
unsuccessful.
The boy's mother and father, a
rabbi himself, would not discuss the case with Newsday. But camp and
State Health Department records filed in court indicate that the parents
were not told of the alleged abuse until nearly 48 hours after the boy
spoke of it, while the 36-year-old Weiner's father, a rabbi well-known
in the Queens Orthodox community, was notified sooner.
Contacted recently, the camp's current executive director, Moshe
Wein, defended the camp's handling of the accusation, saying, "There's
no evidence to indicate that an incident took place." He added, "This
may be one of those cases in which a child lied."
Lawyers for Weiner at his bench trial made much of contradictions in
the boy's statements. But the most confusing testimony came from the
alleged victim's bunkmates.
One of the boys
reversed his story between the time he spoke to police and the trial
several months later, Cawley said in court.
"We believe that there was pressure placed on the victim and children's
families to get them not to testify," said Sullivan County District
Attorney Stephen Lungen in a recent telephone interview. "There was a
child who could have substantiated what was said, and that family would
not cooperate."
The entire matter left Sullivan County Judge Frank Labuda confused.
"It is clear in the evening hours of August 8 and the morning of
August 9, two years ago, something happened at bunk 3 Gimel bunk..." he
said in his January 2000 ruling. But Labuda concluded that trial
testimony "does not create a clear picture for this court of exactly
what happened in Gimel bunk nor who did it."
He found Weiner not guilty.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Tripping Up The Prosecution
By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer
Newsday - May 28, 2003
Last in a series.
Former New Yorker Avrohom Mondrowitz has built a quiet, comfortable life as a college professor in Jerusalem.
The syllabus for his business administration course at Jerusalem College of Engineering is posted on the Web, along with his phone number.
Mondrowitz is living so openly, it's hard to believe the psychologist and self-styled rabbi is wanted for allegedly sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys, ages 10 to 16. The charges against him include sodomy.
"I don't want this hydra to lift its head again," said Mondrowitz, declining to discuss his 1985 indictment on 13 counts. Once the host of a radio program in Brooklyn, Mondrowitz will be arrested should he ever re-enter the United States, according to the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes.
But according to U.S. Justice and State department documents, Hynes' office approved a decision in 1993 to drop efforts to extradite Mondrowitz, a U.S. citizen who has been sheltered by the Israeli government since he fled the United States in 1985.
Michael, a New Jersey attorney who obtained the federal documents after years of research on the Mondrowitz case, said the decision to drop efforts to return Mondrowitz to the United States is an embarrassing one, considering the severity of the charges.
A spokesman for Hynes, Jerry Schmetterer, was at a loss to explain the decision.
"We don't know anything about the State Department closing its file," said Schmetterer, calling the federal records a "mystery."
"We have nothing in our files to indicate we ever made that decision," said Schemetterer, emphasizing that the Mondrowitz file is still kept in a prosecutor's desk in the event Mondrowitz ever returns from Jerusalem.
Escape to Israel is merely one of the factors that can hamper prosecution of alleged sex abuse in the Orthodox community.
Police and prosecutors find that victims of alleged sexual abuse in those communities are discouraged from coming forward.
Intense pressure is often brought to bear on complainants who bypass rabbinical courts -- the community's preferred method of settling disputes -- and instead go to secular authorities. Witnesses, who are often young, become fearful and wavering. And prosecutors face pressure from a community that votes as a cohesive block.
One woman, whose son was called to testify about an alleged instance of abuse, said that extraordinary pressure was placed both on her family and on the family of the alleged victim.
"I had rabbis coming by. They threatened we'll have curses in our family. It might sound silly to you, but it was very frightening," said the woman.
She said that rabbis supplied her with a statement from a psychologist who had never examined her son, saying he was not fit to testify.
In Brooklyn, with its large Hasidic community, police have been confounded by the outcomes of some cases they investigated involving the Hasidim.
At a loss to explain the cases, some cops in the 66th Precinct, which includes Borough Park, have shrugged their shoulders and paraphrased a line from the Jack Nicholson film "Chinatown" -- "Forget it, Jake, it's Brooklyn."
One of those who recalls making the remark was retired police Capt. William Plackenmeyer, who worked for many years in Brooklyn. "In Brooklyn, it almost seemed like there were two penal codes, one for the Hasidic community and one for everyone else," Plackenmeyer said.
But Hynes' office says decisions on prosecutions are made without regard to political considerations or community pressure.
"We prosecute sex crimes. We prosecute allegations of child abuse, sex abuse," said Schmetterer. "Trained investigators conduct these investigations and come to a conclusion. They make the decision."
The arrest of a popular rabbi in the Bobox Hasidic sect in January 2000 provides another example of the pressure that can be placed on those who complain to outside officials. In that case, a 9-year-old boy accused the Brooklyn rabbi, his tutor, of physically and sexually abusing him.
In the end, Hynes' office threw out all charges against Rabbi Solomon Hafner. Schmetterer said they were found to be baseless.
But before the case was resolved, the police assigned 24-hour protection to the complainant's family, according to a law enforcement source. The family had been threatened by members of the Bobov community, the source said.
"They excoriate the victim, they run them out of the community, they make sure the victim will never marry," said sociologist (Name Removed), who, with Michael, researched the Hafner case and frequently writes about domestic abuse in the Orthodox community and provided documents for this article.
The boy's family later moved from Brooklyn to the quieter Bobov community in Monsey. The family would not talk to Newsday, but a friend said the move was an effort to escape community pressure.
While Hynes' office was examining the boy's allegations, the Bobov community convened a rabbinical court, a bet din, to conduct its own investigation.
The child's uncle later complained that rabbis on the bet din had asked the family to sign a document saying the boy was crazy so that they could get the criminal case thrown out. Several members of the bet din either did not return calls from Newsday or declined to discuss the religious court's proceedings.
Meantime, according to the law enforcement source, Bobov rabbis appeared in Hynes office' to plead in Hafner's defense.
Hynes' spokesman Schmetterer would not confirm or deny that such meetings took place, but he said it is not unusual for Hynes' office to meet with community leaders on cases.
After the bet din decision, the five-member panel posted notices throughout Borough Park clearing Hafner. "Rabbi Hafner's comportment with [the child] has been in complete accordance with both Torah law and the law of the land, and a parent should not hesitate to engage Rabbi Hafner as a tutor for his/her child."
With intense pressure from the community common in such cases, families also come under indirect pressure not to go public with their cases.
The social stigma attached to being the victim of sexual abuse in the general public is magnified within the Hasidic community, sources said, so much so that Hasidic victims can find it difficult to marry within the community.
And, as with sex-abuse allegations generally, parents fear causing further psychological damage to their children by placing them on the stand.
In 1995, for instance, Hynes' office charged Rabbi Lewis Brenner with repeatedly sexually abusing a boy starting in 1992 and ending in 1995, when the boy, then 15, told police. Among other places, the alleged encounters occurred in the bathroom of the rabbi's Brooklyn temple.
In a statement to the court, the boys' devastated parents said he could not even attend school, he was so troubled by "a raging cyclone of hate."
"Our son is with us physically today, but his self-respect, dignity and sense of worth were stolen from him at the tender age of 12," the boys' parents said. "Do you realize that you destroyed a world and our family, Mr. Brenner? You have stolen from our son the very essence of his life, his hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future."
The charges against Brenner initially included 14 counts, including sodomy, sexual abuse, and endangering the welfare of a minor. But a plea agreement whittled the charges down to one felony, stunning a Brooklyn judge.
"Given the nature, gravity and frequency of the sexual contact alleged in the felony complaint, this court was surprised by the People's plea offer and requested of the prosecutor a statement why it was forthcoming," said acting Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Heffernan in a court ruling.
The district attorney's office told the judge that the boy's family agreed to the plea bargain ... Recently, an official of the district attorney's office said the family did not want to go through with a trial.
The plea arrangement left Brenner a free man -- he got 5 years probation.
Brenner is the father-in-law of Ephraim Bryks, a Queens rabbi who was the subject of a story in Newsday on Tuesday.
Two teenagers told Canadian police years ago that Bryks abused them when they were youngsters. Bryks has never been charged with a crime and has denied the allegations.
After Brenner's plea deal, he asked the court to exempt him from the sexual abuse registry on grounds that his behavior occurred before the law was passed.
Heffernan refused.
_________________________________________________________________________________
On the Rabbi's Knee
Do the Orthodox Jews have a Catholic-priest problem?
by Robert Kolker
New York Magazine - May 15, 2006
For the full impact of the story and for photos that are not available on-line, it is suggest that you buy the magazine at your local news stand.
'Does it hurt?"
The boy and his teacher were in the front seat of the teacher's blue Plymouth sedan. The boy was 12 years old, pale and shy, and new to Brooklyn—plucked out of another life in Toronto after his mother remarried. He'd lost his father when he was 7, and the promise of a fresh start had appealed to him—a new family, a new world to explore. But a few months had passed, and the boy was lonely. His new stepsisters ignored him; he had trouble making friends at his new school. So when a popular teacher who lived nearby took an interest in him, it seemed like welcome news.
The teacher was in his early twenties—closer in age to many of his students than to his colleagues—tall and athletic, with a shock of red hair, and the kids liked him: He wasn't the type who'd shake his fist at the heavens if he'd heard someone had gone to see a movie. The teacher taught first grade, and the boy was too old to be in his class, but they were neighbors. On the way to the bus stop, the boy would spot the teacher walking from his modest ground-floor newlywed apartment, coffee mug in hand, to his car. And on many days, the teacher was happy to offer the boy and a few other neighborhood kids a lift.
The teacher would usually park on the access road alongside Ocean Parkway, and they'd all walk into school together. But on this cold autumn morning, a few months into the school year, the boy would later remember, the teacher didn't leave the car right away. As the boy and his friends began emptying out of the backseat, the boy remembers the teacher turning to him.
"Stay a few minutes. I want to talk to you."
The other kids left.
"Come to the front," the boy remembers the teacher saying. "Come sit beside me."
Was he in trouble? Had he done something wrong? He couldn't think of anything, but he did as he was told.
The Plymouth had a wide bench seat up front, with no split down the middle.
"Come sit on my lap," said the teacher.
Then the teacher picked him up, the boy remembers, and put him on his lap. The teacher's penis was erect.
The boy's mind flooded. Should I scream? Run? He looked toward Ocean Parkway—Isn't somebody watching?
The teacher unfastened the boy's belt, reached around, and slipped his hand into the boy's pants, the boy says.
He couldn't see the teacher's face. But he could hear him.
"Does it hurt?" the boy recalls the teacher saying, over and over. His voice was urgent but also oddly indifferent, as if he were asking about the weather. "Does it hurt?"
The boy was panicked now, desperate to open the car door and run into the school for help. But he was 12 years old, and the teacher was older and stronger, and, after all, he was a teacher.
All the boy wanted was to fit into his new world. The sooner this ended, he thought, the sooner he could forget it ever happened.
The ordeal lasted just minutes, the boy remembers. Then the teacher told him to go. "I don't remember the exact words, but he said something like `Don't tell anyone,' " the boy says.
So into the school the boy went, wondering if he was the only Orthodox Jewish boy who had ever been molested by a rabbi.
For decades, David Framowitz, 48 years old now and living in Israel, tried to forget about Rabbi Yehuda Kolko. But he couldn't put the memories behind him. A few years ago, prompted by a visit to his old neighborhood, Framowitz found himself impulsively Googling the rabbi's name. He had to know what had become of him. What he found was at once comforting and devastating: a link to a blog with the rabbi's name and the words known pedophile. For the first time in 35 years, Framowitz had reason to believe that Kolko was not just his private tormentor.
On May 4, Framowitz filed a $20 million federal lawsuit against Kolko and Yeshiva Torah Temimah of Flatbush, Brooklyn, for what Framowitz says happened on at least fifteen occasions over two years, from 1969 to 1971—in the front seat of the Plymouth, and at the yeshiva at the end of recess, and at Camp Agudah in the Catskills, where Kolko worked for several summers. Framowitz was listed as a John Doe plaintiff in the legal filing, but he now has decided that putting a name and a face on the case will strengthen its credibility.
Framowitz is far from the rabbi's only accuser. A second plaintiff, who wishes to maintain his anonymity, claims to have been fondled and rubbed up against by Kolko in the eighties, most often in the basement book room of the yeshiva. And on Friday, Framowitz's attorney, Jeffrey Herman, was expected to file a separate, $10 million suit on behalf of an unnamed plaintiff who says he was abused by Kolko in the late eighties. All told, Herman says he knows of as many as twenty victims between the ages of 19 and 50 who say they were abused by Kolko. There's the seventh-grader whom Kolko allegedly pulled into a closet in the seventies and held against his erection until that boy broke free. The dozen campers who came forward in the eighties, only to be rebuffed. And one boy who, twenty years later, is said to have punched Kolko at a Bris they were both attending, because of what he said Kolko had done to him years earlier. "It particularly haunted them," Herman says, "that Kolko was still at the school and children were still being exposed to him."
One rabbi molesting twenty students over several decades would be disturbing enough, but Framowitz's lawsuit alleges that there was also a conspiracy among powerful members of the ultra-Orthodox community to cover up Kolko's actions. The suit names not just Kolko but his yeshiva—accusing Kolko's boss, Rabbi Lipa Margulies, of orchestrating "a campaign of intimidation, concealment and misrepresentations designed to prevent victims from filing lawsuits." According to the complaint, Margulies, a pillar of the Borough Park community, took extraordinary measures to derail a rabbinical court action, or beit din, against Kolko in the eighties—telling family members of a dozen alleged victims that if they came forward, they'd be shunned by the ultra-Orthodox world and their other children would be expelled from his respected yeshiva and kept from enrolling elsewhere (Margulies is named in the suit but not as a defendant). The suit also alleges that Margulies had a revered ultra-Orthodox rabbi, Pinchus Scheinberg (also not a defendant), tell the victims that as a matter of Jewish law, Kolko would have had to have more than just fondled them for the acts to qualify as sexual abuse.
The yeshiva—then called Torah Vodaath, now called Torah Temimah—is known today as the Harvard of the Jewish world, educating 1,000 boys at a time in a complex of modern buildings on Ocean Parkway. Kolko is no longer just a first-grade Hebrew teacher but also a school administrator and active in the school's summer camp, Camp Silver Lake. In the past six months, as Framowitz's attorney and other community members attempted to bring Kolko to a beit din, Margulies permitted Kolko to keep teaching. He even stayed on for two days after the lawsuit was announced—until last week, when, as New York was preparing this story, the yeshiva placed him on administrative leave and issued a statement denying "that anyone acting on its behalf took any steps to prevent alleged victims of sexual abuse from seeking redress in rabbinical or civil courts." (Kolko and Margulies would not respond to requests for comment. Scheinberg, 93 and living in Israel, could not be reached.)
What is perhaps most troubling about Framowitz's case is the idea that Kolko, if culpable, could just be the tip of the iceberg. Rabbi-on-child molestation is a widespread problem in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and one that has long been covered up, according to rabbis, former students, parents, social-service workers, sociologists, psychologists, victims' rights advocates, and survivors of abuse interviewed for this story. They argue that sexual repression, the resistance to modernity, and the barriers to outsiders foster an atmosphere conducive to abuse and silence. The most outspoken advocates believe that the secular authorities—the police and the Brooklyn district attorney's office—are intimidated by rabbinic authorities who don't want their community's issues aired publicly and who wield considerable political influence. They are hoping Framowitz's lawsuit—one of just a few of its kind ever filed and the first to allege a high-level cover-up—could be a signal event, encouraging scores of molestation victims to come forward. Already, the Kolko case is said to have influenced plans for an unrelated case against a prominent Jewish summer camp.
The echoes of another insular religious community—one with its own particular set of sexual restrictions and a proven capacity for institutional denial—are, of course, impossible to miss. "This reminds me of where the Catholic Church was fifteen or twenty years ago," says Herman, who just before taking on the Kolko case won a $5 million judgment for abuse victims of a Catholic priest. "What I see are some members of the community turning a blind eye to what's going on in their backyards."
Even before David Framowitz first found himself alone with Rabbi Kolko, the outlines of his young life had seemed like something out of Dickens. His father, Alfred Szmuk, a public-school teacher, had died when David was 7, leaving his mother, Naomi, not yet 30, to care for him and his younger brother, Jeffrey. For a few years, the family stayed in Toronto; Naomi supported them by teaching Hebrew school. Then Naomi was introduced to Saul Framowitz, a highly Orthodox Borough Park man who had recently lost his wife and only son in a traffic accident and was left with three teenage daughters to raise alone. Within months, there was a courtship and a small wedding, and the widow and her two boys moved in with the widower and his three girls, sharing a three-bedroom, third-floor walk-up in Borough Park.
It was the autumn of 1969, and as the rest of the world seemed to be hurtling headlong into the future, 12-year-old David felt as if he'd been flung back in time. He was taken aback by the bobbing sea of black hats, the women with wigs and long, dark dresses, the way the whole place screeched to a halt on Friday night. It was here that thousands of Hasidic refugees from Europe had chosen to repopulate the people, steadfastly preserving the shtetl life that had almost been destroyed. Any sense of the modern world was ferociously held at bay—no movies or TV or pop music, even newspapers were suspect. The community's views on sex were perhaps most jarring. Boys were trained never to lock eyes with a woman who wasn't related; some were taught not to touch their genitals when they washed.
David and his brother were sent to school at a strict Hasidic yeshiva where everyone spoke Yiddish. David stayed through the end of the year, but hated it. "I told my parents that I was not going back there." He'd tried fitting into the ultra-Orthodox mold but hadn't made many friends. The next year, he was enrolled at a new school—Torah Vodaath. The founder, Rabbi Lipa Margulies, had made a name for the school by cherry-picking top talent, paying his teachers more, and working them harder. "He's single-minded," says Rabbi Nosson Scherman, a former teacher there. "He's obsessed with his school."
Torah Vodaath seemed for a time to be a good fit for David. "It was more what I grew up with in Toronto," he says, "a more normal school, where they had Hebrew lessons or Torah, but they also had English, math, and social studies." A few of David's classmates lived on his street. Soon after the start of the school year, Framowitz says, "I met some kids from the school, and they said, `We have a lift,' and I said, `With whom?' and they said, `One of the teachers lives here, and he's gonna give us a ride.' " After the first attack in the Plymouth, Framowitz says, he tried to avoid Kolko. He tried not walking down his block. "But how many blocks can you skip to go around to get to school," he asks, "before other kids started to wonder?" Some days, he'd be late and miss the bus, or it would be freezing, and he couldn't come up with a reason not to get into Kolko's car when the rest of his friends were piling aboard. Sometimes, it would be a Sunday, when the school day ended early, and he was playing with his friends.
"Here, I'm going home," Framowitz says Kolko would say. "I'll give you a ride."
"No, no, no, I'm here. I'm gonna catch the bus with my friends."
"No, come, we'll go for a ride home."
"You're a young boy, and you get scared," Framowitz says. "What happens if you don't go with him? He's a rabbinic authority in the school. He's the teacher. Will something happen that will cause you to get into trouble because of him—because you didn't show up to go with him on the ride?"
The abuse, Framowitz says, became ritualistic: Kolko would coax him into his car, place him on his lap, and fondle him. Kolko would keep his own pants up, ensuring that his genitals would never touch the boy—a line, perhaps, the rabbi was afraid to cross. Facing forward, David had no view of Kolko during the act. "Did he ejaculate? I have no idea. Was he getting there? I have no idea. I was 12 years old." Even avoiding Kolko's car wasn't a solution: Framowitz says Kolko would corner him after recess at school and rub against him.
Framowitz thought the end of the school year would bring an end to the abuse. But that summer, his parents sent him to Camp Agudah—run by Agudath Israel of America, a powerful ultra-Orthodox organization—and Kolko was a counselor. When Framowitz saw him, his heart sank. After one baseball game, "he pulled me into the woods, just past the center field, and pushed me up against a tree and started rubbing against me," Framowitz says. Other times, he says, the incidents were more fleeting—Kolko would wait until he and Framowitz were alone and rub his knee against Framowitz's groin.
Early on, Framowitz says, he tried telling his mother about Kolko, but she didn't know how to respond. The new marriage wasn't going well; his mother had miscarried—a potential replacement son for his stepfather, to help make up for what the accident had taken away. "It was just terrible pressure," Framowitz says. "One time, she picked herself up, with me and my brother, and she took us down to Manhattan and we stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights. With all the problems in the house, I couldn't force myself to make this into a big issue. And my stepfather just couldn't understand it. He couldn't see how a rabbi, a respectable rabbi, would be doing such things, so I must be making up these stories to get attention."
After a while, Framowitz just stopped talking about it. "I wasn't getting anywhere. They weren't defending me. So I said, Okay, I have to suffer. For family harmony. I'd tell myself, I just want to be a normal kid, but I can't. I can't do anything, because I'll get into trouble. I can't get into trouble because I can't cause more upheavals in the house. So just be quiet, and it'll go away."
Yehuda Kolko first caught the attention of religious authorities as early as the mid-eighties, after a major sexual-abuse scandal rocked the ultra-Orthodox world in Brooklyn. A Hasidic psychologist named Avrohom Mondrowitz had been accused of not just molesting but having intercourse with four boys in his care, ages 10 to 16, some of whom he allegedly took away on long weekends. He was indicted in 1985 but decamped for Israel. In the wake of the case, several prominent rabbis in Brooklyn decided to field complaints about rabbis and others accused of molesting kids. The rabbi chosen to look into Borough Park, who spoke to New York on the condition of anonymity, says Kolko's name came up repeatedly.
This rabbi wasted little time empaneling six rabbis to informally hear Kolko's accusers. Kolko's alleged problems, according to this rabbi, stemmed from his summers at a camp not far from Camp Agudah that Kolko apparently had an ownership stake in during the eighties. According to a former counselor at the camp, who also wishes to remain anonymous, it was an open secret among counselors that Kolko was misbehaving with several campers. A dozen kids had individually come to different counselors, the former counselor says, to complain that Kolko woke them at night, offered them rides in a golf cart, and then let them steer if they sat in his lap. Others said he'd visit them at night and touch them in inappropriate places. But these counselors were 18 or 19 years old, unsure of how to handle the claims, the former counselor says. Only after the Mondrowitz case broke a few years later did some of the former campers and counselors come forward. The panel of six rabbis heard the campers' stories and sympathized, according to the rabbi who convened the panel. But, he says, "there was no mechanism in the community to stop Kolko from teaching, except to go to the cops."
As the six-rabbi panel knew, rabbinical-court proceedings have no real power to substantiate abuse claims or punish abusers. Going to the police is largely frowned on in the ultra-Orthodox world; the notion of mesira, dating to the days of the shtetl, equates going to outsiders with treason. So instead, the teenagers and their families decided first to try to persuade Margulies, Kolko's boss at Torah Temimah, to force Kolko to sell his stake in the camp and resign from the school. At a preliminary meeting with some of Kolko's accusers, Margulies asked whom they had as witnesses. "Each name he dismissed: `This one is in a fantasyland, this one is a thief, you can't trust any of them,' " the source recalls Margulies saying. "And he was not going to do anything about it."
The group, along with parents and former campers from Camp Agudah, then tried summoning a beit din to rule on Kolko. They demanded Kolko not be there so the victims would feel comfortable telling their stories. But when the proceeding began, he was there, so they left. Then Margulies is said to have started a second beit din. According to Framowitz's lawsuit, Pinchus Scheinberg, the powerful rabbi who was close to Margulies, contacted several of Kolko's alleged victims, listened to their complaints, and told them that what happened to them was not abuse—that there needed to be penetration and that because there was none, their claims were not actionable. Then, the lawsuit says, threats followed. One father allegedly was told by Margulies over the phone that if his boy continued to complain, the safety of the rest of his children could not be assured. Both beit dins were halted, the victims never went to the police, and for years, Margulies told others who inquired about Kolko that the rabbi and the school had been exonerated.
Is molestation more common in the Orthodox Jewish community than it is elsewhere? There are no reliable statistics on the subject—molestation often goes unreported, even in relatively liberal communities—but there's reason to believe the answer to that question might be yes. "I wasn't even looking for it, and the amazing thing was how often it would just come up," says Hella Winston, whose recent book, Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels, examines ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn through the eyes of some dissident members who struggle with the dictates of the community. "I heard more from men than from women. What was really shocking was how many boys—so many boys—have had this experience. People I've interviewed have told me every Hasidic kid has heard about this happening to someone."
There are some who believe the repression in the ultra-Orthodox community can foster abuse. Sex before marriage in Hasidic life is strictly forbidden (unmarried men and women are barely allowed to look at one another), and even within marriage, sex is tightly regulated (couples aren't allowed to have sex, for instance, during menstruation and the week after). As Winston notes, fathers can't attend their daughters' school plays, "as the sound of women singing can lead to uncontrollable male sexual arousal." In a world of Paris Hilton videos and Victoria's Secret billboards, there are few outlets for an Orthodox man with compulsions the community refuses to acknowledge even exist. The repression, some say, creates a fertile environment for deviance.
Taboos against reporting sexual abuse don't just promote silence—they may also encourage molesters. Besides the general prohibition against talking about sex, there is also the shondah factor—the overwhelming concern with shame (a child who makes an abuse claim can be thought to bring shame on his whole family). Then there's the prohibition against lashon hara, or "evil speech"; the thinking is that virtually any public complaint about another person amounts to slander. There is shalom bayit, or the mandate to maintain peaceful domestic relations; many women and children have been made to feel that it's their responsibility to maintain harmony by not turning in their abusers. There's the notion of Chillul Hashem—desecrating God's name. This can be invoked if you say anything bad about the community at all. Finally, there is mesira, or the suspicion of secular authorities.
The beit dins are hardly an effective mechanism for dealing with abuse. Given the choice between going after sexual abusers and protecting the community from scrutiny by outsiders, victims' advocates say, religious authorities protect the community almost every time. "They don't have investigative bodies," says Rabbi Yosef Blau, a Yeshiva University adviser who has spoken out about other abuse cases. "They don't do DNA evidence." There's one ancient Jewish legal theory that the testimony of a mentally ill man is more highly regarded than the testimony of a woman. And if beit dins fail a victim, there is no appeal. "We're not accountable to anyone," says Mark Dratch, a modern-Orthodox rabbi who chaired a task force on rabbinical improprieties for the Rabbinical Council of America. "Even the Catholic Church supposedly has more of a structure for accountability than us. If we don't have the training to deal with a victim who comes to us for help, we have the potential to make them a victim again."
The Brooklyn district attorney's office insists it aggressively pursues sex-abuse cases in the Orthodox community, and D.A. Charles Hynes has been commended for launching Project Eden, a Hasidic-sanctioned program that reaches out to ultra-Orthodox victims of domestic violence. "There is nothing different about the way we handle cases in any community, whether they be sex abuse, homicide, or any other crime," says Hynes spokesman Jerry Schmetterer. It bears noting, however, that for months, Hynes's office resisted New York's requests for information on Project Eden, and still won't speak in detail about how they handle sex-abuse cases in the Orthodox community. Victims' advocates have long argued that Hynes's office simply doesn't actively go after abusers in the community, and that when complaints do come their way, they're often too quick to defer to the ruling of a beit din. "I've never seen any district attorney do this with the Catholics," says (Name Removed), perhaps this issue's best-known cause célèbre, who in 1986 claimed that her 6-year-old daughter was being sexually abused by her husband, only to have the child taken out of her custody forever. "The beit dins are hijacking the whole justice system."
Newsday recently uncovered a document, purported to be from the State Department, suggesting that Hynes has all but dropped the Mondrowitz case—ceasing to prod the State Department in its extradition battle. Hynes denies this. "Our position has always been that were Mondrowitz to return to the United States, we would prosecute him for his heinous crimes," says Rhonnie Jaus, chief of Hynes's sex-crimes bureau. Now that there's a civil case against Kolko, are they pursuing a criminal investigation? "We look into cases all the time that are beyond the statute of limitations to see if there are any cases that fall within the statute," Jaus says. "That's what happened with the priest investigations." No Kolko investigation has yet been launched.
What's certain is that much of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish leadership still refuses to acknowledge that sexual abuse is even a problem. Efforts to persuade Orthodox organizations like Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah (the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools) to develop a sex-offender registry have so far been all but ignored. Even Henna White, the Lubavitcher community liaison to Hynes's Project Eden, has complained that she can't get into the yeshivas to be heard on the subject of abuse. "In New York, we're going into the girls' schools," White said at a conference in January. "Unfortunately, we're not going into the boys' schools, and not for lack of trying. Our right-wing yeshivas do not want us there, and there are many people who have tried. The feeling is that this is not a conversation they want to open up."
"The bottom line is that abuse is a universal issue that closed communities hide because it threatens them," says one former Lubavitcher in his thirties who says he was molested by an ultra-Orthodox neighbor, and who wishes to remain anonymous. "Whether it's Jewish or Amish or Mennonite or Catholic or Muslim, it doesn't make a difference. I feel like this is kind of like a fungus. It grows in the dark."
When Framowitz was 14, he began hanging out at the Jewish Defense League in Borough Park. "I needed to get away," he says. "It was more of a showing-off, `Oh, I'm JDL,' like putting up a façade. I was looking for somebody to defend me because I wasn't getting protection at school or at home."
Recognizing how unhappy David was, his parents sent him to yet another yeshiva, in Cleveland, for ninth grade. He lasted a year there, six months at a yeshiva in Toronto, and half a year each in Long Beach and Far Rockaway. In Baltimore, he says, he was molested again, by a rabbi who is now deceased. In retrospect, Framowitz wonders if something about him made him seem vulnerable to pedophiles. "I grew up not wanting to make more trouble than there was already in the house," he says. "Maybe I took everything as it came."
He was 16 when he dropped out of the yeshiva system, moved home to Borough Park, and started working at a computer-services company on Park Avenue while he pursued his GED. He met his future wife, Joyce, in a youth group; he told her about Kolko almost immediately, he says, and she understood. By 1983, he'd become a CPA, and he and his wife had had their first child and decided to make aliyah before their son was old enough to start school in Brooklyn. The whole family, including his parents, eventually moved to Israel.
Three years ago, on a visit to New York, Framowitz was walking down Ocean Parkway when he ran into his seventh- and eighth-grade rebbe. He called out.
"Rabbi Kaufman, Rabbi Kaufman—I don't know if you remember me, but you were my teacher 30 years ago."
The rabbi squinted. "I remember the face, but I don't remember the name."
"David Framowitz."
"Oh," said the rabbi. "David Framowitz. How are you? It's been so long."
"And I told myself, David, say something, tell him that you were molested by Rabbi Kolko. And I said to myself, I can't. It's a different world, you're not there. Forget it—you've made a life for yourself."
Back in Israel, he found himself typing Kolko's name into Google.
Framowitz found what he was looking for on a blog called Un-Orthodox Jew. The site—one anonymous insider's blistering, some say heretical, accusations of hypocrisy and corruption in the community—started about a year ago and took just months to report a half-million hits. Its anonymous Webmaster, who calls himself UOJ, has made the Kolko case his main cause. UOJ has never met with me, but he calls when I e-mail him. When he does, my caller I.D. is blocked. "Being from the family I'm from, I know everybody," he tells me. "They've all been to my home. My family's involved in all aspects of the Jewish community."
UOJ says that he first became disenchanted with the established Jewish leadership when as a young man he attended a beit din with his father and saw the rabbis there behaving in less than honest ways. "They were businessmen, mostly," he says. His earliest postings, in March of last year, reflect what would become his signature cynicism. "By the time I was Bar-Mitzvah, I got the whole picture," he wrote. "The guys with the money got the respect, the final say in the schools and shuls, and were the guests of honor at Jewish functions, period! . . . Give me one truly religious and honorable Jew, and I will give you one hundred thousand who do not have a clue." UOJ's first reference to Kolko came on June 26 of last year, in a broadside against Margulies. In no uncertain terms, he accused Margulies of harboring a pedophile and threatening the parents of victims into silence.
The initial responses were hostile. "You're a bit too bitter, even for my taste," one reader commented. "Maybe you are just a typical extreme left-wing Jew who hates Rabbonim and the Torah."
"You are entitled to your opinion," UOJ replied. "ALL MY POSTS ARE FACTS, AS UGLY AS THEY ARE!!!!"
"FACTS," his critic replied. "Like what, the New York Times?"
But, a day later, on June 27, came another anonymous comment claiming to confirm what UOJ had said. And then another, from someone saying he was molested by Kolko. And another, from someone claiming to be the parent of another victim, and mentioning a failed beit din.
This is the string of posts that Framowitz noticed on Google. On September 23, he told his story in detail as a comment, using only his first name.
"I too was molested by Rabbi Kolko," he wrote, "both while a student in 7th and 8th grades and during those same summers whilst a camper in Camp Agudah. . . . He would insert his hands down the front of my pants and would begin to `search around,' to say the least. At the same time he would pull me closer to himself, or would push himself forward against myself, sometimes even pushing me into the steering wheel, to the point that it hurt. Unfortunately I didn't react or complain. I of course told my parents and tried on several times to explain to them what I was going through, but they didn't want to believe me and my `stories,' etc. So I just shut up and let the molestation and perversion continue. . . . I feel that it is about time that the wall of silence be torn down."
A few months later, after getting dozens of similar comments and e-mails, UOJ listed Jeffrey Herman's name and phone number. He says he hadn't spoken with Herman—he'd just noticed him as a guest on The O'Reilly Factor, talking about a clergy sex-abuse case, and thought that anyone reading his site who wanted confidentiality might consider calling him. "The key for me," UOJ says, "was that on his Website, Herman said that he had strategies for getting around the statute of limitations."
UOJ posted Herman's name and number. When Herman, in turn, sent an e-mail saying he'd be happy to speak with alleged victims confidentially, Framowitz saw the posting and called him. Herman, an observant Jew from Miami, has handled millions of dollars in sex-abuse claims against clergy and school systems, mainly against the Catholic Church. He says he was interested in working on Jewish cases for the same reasons he works on Catholic ones. "People say, `Oh, are you gonna go after a rabbi?' " he says. "That's kind of a funny question to me. I see the kind of work I'm doing as protecting kids. Jewish kids are certainly as worth protecting as Catholic kids."
On February 2, UOJ paid for a bulk mailing to Orthodox homes in Borough Park, Flatbush, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights that might be too observant to have access to the Internet. The mailing accused Kolko of molestation and Margulies of a cover-up and even included their phone numbers. That's when UOJ says he started receiving threats—"We're gonna get your family" and "We know who you are." (Many of these e-mails have been forwarded to Herman.) People accused him of betraying his community and having an ax to grind against Kolko and Margulies. The Jewish Press ran an editorial blasting the mailing. A rival blog called End UOJ was created. But the most shocking responses came from those who believed that accusing Kolko of abuse—true or not—was worse than the abuse itself. "Certainly speaking evil of somebody, truth or otherwise, establishes the most severe of all wrongdoings," one pseudonymous comment on UOJ reads—"far, far worse then [sic] `child sexual abuse,' and the punishment far more severe." The post goes on to claim that having sex with a child is punishable by 39 lashings "at the most," whereas lashon hara is punishable by leprosy—"a far worse penalty."
Now that there's a lawsuit, UOJ feels vindicated. "Molestation is rampant," he says. "It's not a one-in-a-million case. There's at least one in every school. And I'm going to go after them one at a time."
David Framowitz has four adult children of his own now, with careers and graduate degrees. His kids have served in the Israeli Army and lost friends to terror bombings. He lives in a sunny, concrete split-level house near the West Bank, and considers himself a modern-Orthodox Jew now, wrapping the leather straps of tefillin around his arms every morning, praying three times a day, spending Sabbath at shul. He does not wear the black hat or suit or the curls of payes. He has told his children all about Kolko.
For years, he says, he's been happy—but he knows he's been affected by the abuse. "I'd tell myself, It wasn't my fault, I'm not going to let this ruin my life," he says. "You keep yourself busy and go to work and have a normal family life. But it's always there. It's like a nightmare that never goes away. No matter how hard I try to push it away, his face is always there."
Framowitz knows it won't be easy to win the lawsuit. The three-year statute of limitations is the greatest obstacle. Others have tried circumventing it and failed. Most recently, an upstate man named John Zumpano sued a priest for allegedly repeatedly abusing him throughout much of the sixties, arguing that he was too mentally damaged to bring a case until now. The state's highest court refused this argument. But the decision showed others one possible way around the statute: If after the abuse, a defendant keeps his accusers from suing by intimidation, the statute could perhaps be voided. Margulies's alleged threats of reprisals against young victims, Herman argues, meet that standard.
The $20 million price tag ($10 million per plaintiff), Herman says, is an appropriate figure given Framowitz's pain and suffering. (Herman's latest settlement, in a priest case, was $5 million.) But money isn't all Framowitz and Herman are after, they say. They'd like Kolko dismissed from the yeshiva and kept from working with children again. They want the yeshiva to establish a fund for victims who resurface in the future. And they want the yeshiva to publicly accept responsibility for its negligence, which in all likelihood would mean disciplining or dismissing Margulies. While Kolko's chances of returning to the yeshiva are clearly in jeopardy in light of his suspension, people who know Margulies say it's doubtful he'd ever loosen his hold on the institution he created. "Margulies is angry and bitter about this," says one longtime supporter. Like the powers-that-be in the Catholic Church, this source says, Margulies "doesn't get how this crime is viewed by this society with such abhorrence. He still believes the issue can be managed, when the proper response would be to meet it head-on."
The day his lawsuit was announced, David Framowitz visited the street in Borough Park where he and Kolko first met. He hadn't been there in years. In the car, he saw men with black hats and payes, women with forties fashions. He noticed a familiar toy store on a corner and shook his head. "Nothing's changed here," he said. "They're in their own little ghetto. It's hard for them to believe that such things happen."
He was silent for a time, then he turned toward me.
"So, you have pictures?"
At a red light, I handed him three snapshots of the rabbi, taken a few mornings earlier outside his house in Midwood. Framowitz stared at them.
"Huh. Huh. That's him. The face."
The only difference, he said, was the hair—once so red, now all white.
We arrived on the street where Framowitz had lived—57th between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Avenues. He pointed up to the third-floor balcony of a small redbrick building. "Same house, same everything," he said.
But when we got to Kolko's old block, there was new construction where Kolko's house once was. "It's not there anymore," he mumbled, crossing the street. "It's not there."
Framowitz, silent for 35 years, now couldn't stop talking.
"If they've known about this for 20 years or 25 years, why the cover-up? If there's even an iota of people thinking or knowing about Kolko, why is the guy still teaching children? Why hasn't anybody filed a complaint with the police? And why isn't anybody filing a complaint with the D.A.'s office? If they want to take care of it the Jewish way, fine. But why haven't they done that? Why aren't people standing outside the yeshiva demonstrating? For one person getting a ticket in Borough Park, look what they did! They rioted in the streets! Jewish kids are getting harmed, and no one's outside this school demanding an investigation? I don't understand it. I should have done this years ago. But if I can still save some kid . . . "
He trailed off.
"He who saves one life is like saving the world. That's what the Torah says."
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Silence of the Lam
by Kristen Lombardi
Village Voice - July 25th, 2006
Accused of sexually abusing young boys, a Brooklyn rabbi lit for Israel 22 years ago. Now one alleged victim wants him brought back for trial.
Out of the shadows: Abe asked the Brooklyn D.A. to reopen the case against Rabbi Mondrowitz.
Abe vividly remembers that wall. The "bragging wall," as he's come to call it, was crammed with certificates and diplomas. He remembers fixating on that wall as the Hasidic psychologist advised him on how to be a good boy. He fixated on it, too, when the psychologist sat beside him, the man's hand shoved down his pants, stroking Abe's genitals.
Abe was eight years old, the defiant son of a devout Orthodox Jewish family who was sent to the child psychologist in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Every Sunday for four months in 1984, he'd go for counseling in the modest house on 60th Street. Sessions started with talk of his behavior—his mischief at home, his disobedience at yeshiva. Goals were set, rewards promised. Then, Abe alleges, the psycho- logist's hand would be in his underwear.
"He would fondle and play with my genitals," says Abe, now a thirtyish businessman not willing to publish his last name. For this former Borough Park resident, whose Orthodox faith taught him to revere elders, the encounters were devastating. "I felt very odd, ashamed. I didn't know what to think."
Abe hid the abuse for two decades, not telling a soul, yearning to get on with life. Until, in May, he discovered what had happened to the man he claims molested him: He got away.
That child psychologist was Avrohom Mondrowitz, Abe says, the same one charged with sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys in February 1985. Once a popular radio host whose Orthodox audience had known him as "Rabbi," Mondrowitz skipped town before police could arrest him. He surfaced later in Israel, where he's lived for two decades. (Mondrowitz, now 58 and reportedly in Jerusalem, could not be reached for comment.)
Abe isn't one of those four boys. He stopped his sessions in the summer of 1984, never to see Mondrowitz again. All these years, he's had no idea his alleged abuser was indicted for molesting kids, on charges that included sodomy. Abe learned of the outstanding case from a mention in a May 22 New York article about an ultra-Orthodox rabbi accused of sexual abuse.
Seeing the name in print left Abe stunned. He went online, discovering postings about the self-styled rabbi on sites for Jewish survivors of sexual abuse. Reeling, he contacted an attorney. And last month, he identified himself as a victim to the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.
Explains Abe, "I could tell this guy was guilty as heck and I had to do something. He needs to be brought to justice."
The D.A.'s office confirms that Abe appeared at its Jay Street headquarters in June. Prosecutors interviewed him and recorded his complaints. Hynes can do little about the allegations because they fall outside the five-year statute of limitations for sex offenses, according to Rhonnie Jaus, chief of the sex crimes bureau. All Hynes can do is try to use Abe's testimony as supporting evidence against Mondrowitz at trial.
Jaus maintains that Hynes is still pursuing the 1985 case. The indictment against Mondrowitz is pending; her bureau remains in touch with the original victims, now in their thirties.
"We stand ready, willing, and able to prosecute him for his heinous crimes," Jaus states. "If he returns to this country, we would arrest him. We would prosecute him. We would do everything we could to achieve justice in this case."
But there's a lot more Hynes could be doing to achieve justice, it seems. The one person who can reopen the push for extradition is the Brooklyn D.A.; he calls the Justice Department, Justice calls State, State calls Israel. That's how it works. Michael, the New Jersey attorney who represents Abe, believes Hynes could force Mondrowitz to stand trial, if only Hynes would take a more aggressive stance. Past efforts to extradite Mondrowitz failed only because of a technicality. Under a 1962 treaty, the United States and Israel have agreed "reciprocally to deliver up persons found in its territory who have been charged with . . . offenses mentioned [and] committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the other." This U.S.-Israel extradition treaty lists 31 crimes, including rape. You might think the sodomy charges against Mondrowitz would fit that category. In 1985, though, Israeli law defined rape narrowly as "having sexual intercourse with a woman without her free consent." Oral and anal raping of boys—among the acts of which Mondrowitz is accused—weren't crimes by Israeli standards.
Today, that loophole has been all but closed. Israel has amended its rape law to recognize males as potential victims, making the act of forcible sodomy a crime punishable by 20 years in prison. Michael argues the change opens the door to revisit the case. "In theory," he says, "there's no reason for Hynes not to request extradition."
Extradition lawyers second his opinion. Richard Bierschbach, who teaches criminal law at Cardozo Law School and who has worked on such cases, tells the Voice, "I think he would be extraditable now." Changing the law, he says, effectively changed the treaty. Courts have ruled that modifications to treaties can be applied retroactively, without violating a fugitive's due-process rights. "You can say with a fair degree of confidence that sodomy is now an extraditable offense."
Even Mondrowitz's attorney suggests that extradition isn't out of the question. Reached in his Tel Aviv office, David Ofek says he didn't believe the charges against his client when defending him in the 1980s, and he doesn't now, calling them "all lies." Mondrowitz has not been charged with a crime in Israel. Nor has anyone accused him of child molestation there. In a heavy accent, Ofek adds, "I found him to be a marvelous and gentle person, and I don't think he's touched a child."
Still, Ofek acknowledges that sodomy is a crime equal to rape in Israel—one that, in general, is extraditable. "It's a very serious crime," he says, "and we don't like people like that."
So does that mean his client could be extradited? "After 20 years," he tells the Voice, "try to do it."
Mondrowitz was a celebrity to start, a Hasidic Frasier of sorts, hosting the call-in program Life Is for Living at the now defunct WNYN radio station, doling out advice over the airwaves. But in a five-page criminal indictment, prosecutors painted Mondro-witz as an insatiable abuser who allegedly preyed on four boys, ages nine to 15, over four years. The 13 counts against him include eight of sexual abuse in the first degree, five of sodomy in the first degree.
The indictment may tell only a fraction of the story, says Sal Catalfumo. Now retired, he was the main sex crimes detective who investigated Mondrowitz for four months beginning in November 1984, when the Brooklyn South precinct got an anonymous tip about a rabbi. "There were a lot of kids and a lot of allegations," he says.
Catalfumo identified about a dozen victims to then Brooklyn D.A. Elizabeth Holtzman, whose office pressed charges on the four strongest cases. He had interviewed dozens more, he says. Initially, investigators had suspected Mondrowitz singled out Orthodox Jewish children who attended his special-education class at a Foster Avenue yeshiva or his child-counseling practice on 60th Street. Catalfumo says he ended up discovering victims from Italian Catholic families living on the same street as Mondrowitz did. Some served as altar boys at a nearby church. Others played with his seven kids. Two were prepubescent sons of Catalfumo's former high school classmate.
"Children told me and my partner that he would be molesting them in one room while their parents would be waiting in the next," Catalfumo recalls. When police searched the office, he says, they uncovered child pornography in the desk drawers.
By the time police had drawn up an arrest warrant, in December 1984, Catalfumo says, "The guy was gone. He escaped, and he's never had to face the music." All these years later, the former investigator cannot quite put this unresolved case behind him. He cannot quite forget about those, like Abe, who claim to be victims.
Confides Catalfumo, "Personally, I'd like to catch this guy. He shouldn't be able to evade prosecution for the rest of his life."
The Mondrowitz case has also haunted Abe's attorney. Michael's made a lonely campaign out of researching it, filing freedom-of-information requests to obtain classified records. Beginning in 1999, he spent two years collecting documents from the U.S. State and Justice departments chronicling the feds' battle to extradite the fugitive—a battle that stops in 1993, courtesy of Hynes. Michael shared his files with the Voice for this article. (The Justice Department declined to comment on the case, referring questions to State; its spokesperson refused even to speak generally about the U.S.-Israel extradition treaty.)
The paper trail starts just as the indictment was about to come down. In January 1985, according to the records, D.A. Holtzman's office began pushing the feds to bring Mondrowitz back to Brooklyn for trial, calling the Justice Department. Two months later, her office made a formal request for "the provisional arrest in Israel of Avrohom Mondrowitz." Prosecutors sent along materials for extradition in September, and kept in contact with their federal counterparts for the next two years. Internal records suggest that Washington officials felt substantial pressure from Holtzman.
"Natives of Brooklyn are becoming restless," reads one February 1986 memorandum, "and we are receiving calls from Kings County District Attorney's Office."
Another cable, dated November 1986, reports that the Israeli official on the case "has from time to time been in telephonic communication directly with the prosecutor's office in New York City to discuss the matter."
Yet another, from March 1987: "Relay the gist of this development to prosecuting attorney handling this case [who] had phoned on February 17."
Now a Manhattan attorney specializing in government relations, Holtzman declined to discuss her office's efforts to seek extradition. "I can tell you that we didn't sit on cases like that in my office," she says.
Still, these early requests were stymied. As early as 1985, Israeli officials had informed the U.S. that rape, under Israeli law, didn't cover sodomy. "The Mondrowitz case as presented cannot be acted upon under the terms of the existing U.S.-Israel extradition agreement," states an April 1985 cable.
Federal officials got creative and asked Israel to consider expelling Mondrowitz, then an American citizen on a tourist visa. For years, the case sat in a kind of legal limbo.
And then, in February 1987, after a change in leadership, the Israeli Interior Ministry ordered Mondrowitz deported to Brooklyn. Ofek appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, asking for a stay and seeking access to the U.S. extradition package. It included four affidavits from John Doe victims. It also included a letter, purportedly written by a Borough Park social worker, charging that Mondrowitz had infected 28 boys with HIV/AIDS. The claim would be stunning now; back then, it was made more so by the fact that so many people didn't understand the virus.
"When you say, 20 years ago, that the man had infected children with AIDS, it means that the man would kill children," Ofek says. There were no drug cocktails in 1987. Not many hospitals in Israel could administer an HIV test. Eventually, Ofek says, his client found one. The results came back negative. The court threw out the deportation order. "The United States wanted extradition and the Israeli government wanted to deport him—and I stopped it."
To hear Hynes's office tell it now, extradition represents the one barrier to prosecuting this case. Just last May, Jaus says, her bureau reviewed its files and consulted with Israeli legal authorities, as well as federal officials. The verdict? "Under the current treaty," she reports, "he is charged with a non- extraditable offense."
Or not. In 1988, Israel amended its rape law to cover the act of homosexual rape. Internal federal letters make note of the change, urging a second look at extradition.
"An amendment to the Israeli penal code . . . presents us, we believe, with an opportunity to reopen the extradition case of Avrohom Mondrowitz," reads one March 1988 telegram from the American embassy in Tel Aviv to the State Department in Washington, D.C.
Interestingly, no records show that federal officials called Holtzman to relay the news. And there is nothing to suggest that her office was keeping abreast of the developments, or even knew about the change. Just when the U.S. may have gained proper grounds to extradite Mondrowitz, the paper trail fades.
But if Holtzman missed a key opportunity, Hynes has apparently plain sat on the case. He became the D.A. in 1990. In the federal file, there is no record of any activity from Hynes on the matter until 1993, when Justice officials called his office. That's when he all but dropped the case—approving a decision to end extradition attempts for good.
As one September 1993 Justice Department letter details, prosecutors "contacted our office and advised that they would not be pursuing the case any further at this time."
"Hynes has never been hot to extradite Mondrowitz," charges Michael. Why would Hynes allow a fugitive to evade prosecution through an old loophole, especially when a new victim has come forward to testify? "It's a compelling argument," observes Mary- ellen Fullerton, who teaches international criminal law at Brooklyn Law School. "If I were the Brooklyn D.A., I'd consider it."
Bruce Zagaris, an extradition lawyer in Washington, D.C., notes that the U.S.-Israel treaty is being updated, and that the new protocol would make it even easier to deliver up someone, like Mondrowitz, whose alleged acts haven't fallen neatly into the list of specified offenses. The protocol would replace the list with a provision defining any offense extraditable "as long as the crime is punishable by one year or more and as long as it's a crime in both countries."
So, Zagaris offers, "Yes, I'd say this guy is extraditable. And under this new protocol, there is even more of a chance that he could be."
At the very least, argues Bierschbach, the Cardozo professor, "you cannot flat-out say that he's not extraditable. You can make the argument, but it's weak."
Even so, Hynes spokesperson Jerry Schmetterer maintains, flatly: "After reviewing the files and consulting with authorities, our position remains that under the current treaty, Mondrowitz cannot be extradited. . . . He was charged with sodomy and the treaty has changed. It's our position this change is not retroactive."
Told that experts say otherwise, he snaps, "That's fine. You write your story. This is the position of the district attorney."
Maybe Hynes has his own reasons for not pushing extradition. In Brooklyn politics, the Orthodox ommunity can wield considerable influence. Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf explains, "They vote, and they vote in large numbers often." He estimates that the Orthodox population accounts for some 30 percent of the borough's electorate, from Williamsburg to Crown Heights, Borough Park, Flatbush, and Midwood. Especially in ultra-Orthodox areas, rabbis tend to pick candidates and congregants cast votes accordingly.
"The rabbis are very important because they tell their followers who to get behind," says Sheinkopf. For a politician, he says, that means "you have to play to them."
Hynes has worked hard to court the community over the years. In 1990, he became the first D.A. in the city to convene a Jewish advisory council, which kept leaders abreast of cases involving Jewish defen-dants or complainants. The council is now defunct, says Schmetterer, replaced by the office's full-time liaison to the Hasidic community, Henna White, herself a Lubavitcher. (He refused to let the Voice interview White for this article, saying, "It wouldn't be her place to talk about this case.") Hynes has been commended for launching such initiatives as Project Eden, a Hasidic-sanctioned program that reaches out to ultra-Orthodox victims of domestic violence.
Aaron Twerski, the dean of Hofstra Law School and a former council member, describes Hynes's relationship to the Orthodox community as "quite positive." He explains, "Hynes is a presence in the community. He's been responsive."
But Hynes has bumped up against the community before. The most dramatic example came in 1999, when the D.A.'s office charged a prominent Hasidic rabbi named Bernard Freilich with witness tampering and intimidation for allegedly making death threats against an Orthodox woman who was to testify in a sex-abuse case. The community reacted with fury, organizing demonstrations, accusing Hynes of anti-Semitism. Freilich wound up acquitted at a 2000 trial.
Michael says the D.A. has a habit of backing down from prosecutions that Orthodox rabbinical leaders would rather handle themselves. He has researched two instances where the D.A. initiated criminal proceedings against accused Hasidic abusers, only to let them fizzle. In each, he notes, "it was community opposition that spelled the difference."
With Mondrowitz, the Orthodox community hasn't exactly clamored for justice. No one dared talk publicly about the scandal when it broke. Catalfumo says rabbis refused to answer questions, parents refused to file complaints. Even those who wanted to see Mondrowitz punished—or dead—wouldn't cooperate with authorities, the detective says, for fear their kids would become tainted by a trial.
Catalfumo doubts the D.A. would do anything to upset the Orthodox community today, and he doubts the community would want to revisit the case. "Let's face it, I don't think they're interested in seeing this surface again," he says. Indeed, Orthodox rabbis and politicians who remember the Mondrowitz case declined to talk about it with the Voice. One Borough Park resident with ties to the same Hasidic sect as Mondrowitz offered this opinion: "Once a case has been put to sleep, it's best to leave it alone."
Twerski, of Hofstra, advocates "zero tolerance" in the community for sexual abuse. But when told about the newly vocal Mondrowitz victim and his desire to reopen the case, Twerski replies, "I don't know what to say about that. That's an old, old case and I'm not going to comment on it."
Jaus, for her part, bristles at the suggestion of special treatment. In 2000, her bureau got word from State officials that Mondrowitz was returning to the States. It contacted the original four victims. It had D.C. police ready to arrest him. He never showed up.
"If we heard this information again, we'd do the same thing," she states.
Those words offer little consolation to Abe. Sitting in the dining room at his attorney's suburban home, Abe hunches over the table, his arms across his chest, his eyes on his Blackberry, as he relays what he told prosecutors on June 7. How Mondrowitz had begun molesting him during a counseling session one day, and wound up making it routine. How the psychologist had even invited him upstairs, and fondled him there.
Abe had hoped his testimony would inspire Hynes to push for extradition, he says. "I came away with the realization that my experience is a footnote in a case the D.A. won't do anything about."
At least, Abe believes, not without incentive. So on June 24, he contacted an anonymous blogger known as Un-Orthodox Jew, who has posted controversial diatribes about sexual abuse and cover-up in the Hasidic world. Abe posted his own entry, writing:
"MONDROWITZ ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! Has anyone contacted you as being a victim of Avrohom Mondrowitz? . . . There is renewed interest in this case & . . . I am trying to find out if other victims have also recently come forward so that we can pool our resources & pressure the DA's office."
So far, he's received little response, though two Orthodox Jewish men who claim to be victims of Mondrowitz have contacted the Voice, expressing a desire to bring him back.
To Abe, it all seems so upside down—the way Hynes didn't push for extradition in 1993, the way he won't now. That his alleged abuser can live in Israel, his whereabouts known, yet run around scot-free, seems almost as bad as the abuse.
As Abe confides, "That makes it seem like a big slap in the face by the D.A."
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New York Post - July 25, 2006
Two Orthodox Jewish men have come forward to say they were molested by a Brooklyn counselor who was indicted in the 1980s for sexually abusing kids but skipped to Israel before he could be prosecuted.Now they want the Brooklyn district attorney to revive efforts to get Avrohom Mondrowitz shipped back for trial.
"It's outrageous that the DA has allowed this to slip," Mark Weiss, who is now 39, told The Post.
The pair's stories are strikingly similar to those detailed in the indictment against Mondrowitz, which grew out of a case involving other children.
Both newly revealed victims were troubled kids in their early teens whose parents sent them for counseling.
"I remember [Mondrowitz] had this sporty car . . . As a naive kid, I was amazed at how cool this dude was," Weiss said.
Once Mondrowitz, a self-proclaimed rabbi, won his trust, things grew sinister.
"He was so damn smooth," Weiss said. "Everything was my decision. 'Do you want to sleep in the back of my house, where it is scary? Or do you think you want to be with me, where you'll be more comfortable?'
"Then began the whole touching thing. There was some real nasty stuff."
The other victim, who asked not to be identified, started seeing Mondrowitz in early 1984.
"One day, I was sitting opposite him. He began to sit alongside of me and stick his hands down my pants," said the man.
Retired Detective Salvator Catalfumo said the investigation "began with an anonymous caller who said there was a rabbi living on the street molesting children.
"It was very difficult pursing this case," he recalled. "The Hasidic community wanted no part of this. We were told that if a Hasidic kid was molested, no parent would allow their daughter to [marry him]."
Still, Catalfumo, his partner, Patricia Kehoe, and the head of the DA's sex-crimes unit, Barbara Neuman, were able to secure an indictment in 1985. But before he could be arrested, Mondrowitz fled to Israel.
Then-Brooklyn DA Elizabeth Holtzman tried for years to have him sent back, but America's treaty with Israel at the time did not recognize sodomy as an extraditable offense.
In 1988, the treaty was changed, but Holtzman soon left office, to be replaced by Charles Hynes, and the case went cold.
Michael, who represents both new victims, blamed Hynes' inaction on "a lack of political will."
But Rhonnie Jaus, now head of the sex-crimes unit, denied this, saying her hands are tired because the new treaty does not apply retroactively. As for the new victims, the statute of limitations precludes prosecution.
"I'm not sure what we can do," Jaus said. "We have always been interested in this case. There is a warrant out there. We are ready, willing and able to try him."
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Victims Press Brooklyn D.A. To Seek Abuse Suspect's Extradition From Israel
By NATHANIEL POPPER
Forward (NY) - July 28, 2006
In the wake of new revelations about sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, pressure is mounting on the Brooklyn district attorney to seek the extradition of a man who fled to Israel after being indicted for sex offenses.
Avrohom Mondrowitz was indicted in 1984 on four counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree after years as a school counselor in the Brooklyn Orthodox community. Three of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, who had not been aware of the original investigation, recently approached an Orthodox lawyer who has passionately taken up the case. One of those men has since given his testimony to the Brooklyn district attorney's office, which would be responsible for requesting extradition. Another of the victims plans to go to the district attorney, Charles Hynes, in the next week.
The district attorney preceding Hynes had pushed for Mondrowitz's extradition from Israel in the 1980s, but Hynes dropped the effort after he was elected in 1989, according to recently released government documents. The new set of victims to come forward say they are pained by Mondrowitz's continuing freedom, and the lack of effort by Hynes and the Orthodox community in pursuing the suspected abuser.
"Every time somebody gets let down as a victim, it's a further continuation of the abuse," said Mark Weiss, who says he was abused by Mondrowitz during a summer week with the counselor when he was 13. "He's just sitting there, taunting us, saying 'Hah, you're never going to catch me, I know the system too well.'"
Weiss, who is now 39, said that just a few weeks ago a friend in Israel says he saw Mondrowitz on the streets of Jerusalem, speaking with a group of children. Mondrowitz has been a teacher at the Jerusalem College of Engineering, posting his lectures and syllabi online.
A spokesman for Hynes, Jerry Schmetterer, said the Brooklyn district attorney's office is ready to arrest Mondrowitz if he ever returns to the United States. But Schmetterer says the D.A.'s office is hamstrung by Israeli law, which in the 1980s did not classify Mondrowitz's alleged crime — sodomy — as rape. For extradition to go forward, the crime generally must be punishable in both countries. In fact, the Israeli rape law was changed in 1988 to include sodomy, but Schmetterer said the extradition treaty cannot be used retroactively.
"Our position is that he cannot be extradited; he could not be extradited then, and he cannot be now," Schmetterer said.
That line of legal reasoning was explicitly rejected by the American embassy in Tel Aviv, soon after the Israeli law was changed. In a cable to the State Department, the embassy said that they had talked with officials in the Israeli Justice Ministry and determined that because Mondrowitz could eventually be charged under American rather than Israeli law, the retroactivity should not be an issue. The new law "presents us, we believe, with an opportunity to reopen the extradition case of Avrohom Mondrowitz," the embassy said.
The government documents were uncovered by Michael, the attorney who has gathered together the three new alleged victims to press the case. Other legal experts told the Forward that while there could be legal complications, the district attorney's office could pursue the extradition.
"I don't think the D.A. is being aggressive enough," said Douglas McNabb, who specializes in international extradition at a Washington, D.C., law firm. "If I were a victim I would be very upset that the D.A.'s office is not pursuing this matter."
The extradition was a clear priority for Hynes's predecessor, Elizabeth Holtzman. Her office pushed the State Department on the matter. At one point the Israeli government signed a deportation order, but the situation ended in a "stand off," according to a State Department memo. When Hynes took office, and his assistants were asked if they wanted to pursue the case, one of those assistants informed the State Department that "they would not be pursuing the case any further at this time," according to another memo.
Schmetterer said that the Brooklyn D.A.'s office dropped the issue after knowing for years that it could not pursue Mondrowitz.
Anti-abuse activists in the Orthodox community say Hynes's silence may have been due to pressure from the Orthodox community, which they claim has historically been reluctant to see alleged sex offenders prosecuted. The activists, including, point to a 14-person Jewish advisory council that Hynes assembled soon after he was elected, comprising members of the Orthodox leadership in Brooklyn. One woman who has been at odds with the leadership for years, (Name Removed), said she was told by two members of Hynes's council that the community did not want to see Mondrowitz prosecuted.
"The rabbis have no comprehension of the injury of sexual abuse," said (Name Removed), an anti-abuse activist. "They have no comprehension of why the victims want justice."
One member of Hynes's Jewish council, Rabbi Herbert Bomzer, said he does not remember Mondrowitz's extradition being discussed by the council. Bomzer did say that he knew Mondrowitz when the younger man was a counselor at Yeshiva University's high school, and that Mondrowitz had been "loved" by the students.
When asked if he would now support extradition proceedings, Bomzer, president of the rabbinical board of Flatbush, said: "If he has managed to get to Israel and is protected by the law there — then leave it alone."
Weiss, the 39-year-old alleged victim of Mondrowitz, said that from the beginning it had been clear that many members of the Orthodox community wanted him to let the case go. He said he had been molested when his father sent him to spend a week with Mondrowitz at a difficult moment in Weiss's adolescence. During that week, Mondrowitz's family was in the Catskills and, Weiss claimed, each night he was coaxed into bed by Mondrowitz.
"What's difficult to think about is that he was so smooth — so manipulative," Weiss said. "It was as if it was all my choice."
Weiss said that he blocked the experience out for years, but a run-in with Mondrowitz during high school conjured up the memories and led to a breakdown. He first told his parents, but they told him he must be mistaken. "He's a frum man," Weiss remembers his parents saying, using a Yiddish word meaning religiously observant.
A few years later, a principal at the yeshiva that Mondrowitz had attended summond Weiss — but after giving over the details, Weiss said, nothing happened.
The incident faded into the background for many years, but in 2001, Weiss was drawn out by what was billed as a "night for healing" at a New York school for Orthodox boys. Weiss showed up with high hopes, but he says that the event turned into a series of speeches by rabbis who spoke in allegorical terms, rather than dealing with the victims in the room.
Weiss decided to go outside the Orthodox community when he read an article in New York Magazine last month, detailing the case of Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, a teacher at an Orthodox boys school in Flatbush who was sued by alleged former victims. Kolko has not yet filed opposition papers.
The second alleged Mondrowitz victim, who has already gone to Hynes — and who wishes to remain anonymous — also said it was the Kolko article that prompted him to step forward. For both, the hope is that Mondrowitz will be "brought to justice and made an example of," in the words of the second accuser.
"I want to show that abusers can't get away with it, that we as a community will no longer stand for the routine cover-ups of abuse, and to try to put some finality to that chapter of my life," he said.
It is likely that the new complaints would not be included in the counts, if Mondrowitz is arrested, due to the statute of limitations. But the men both say they hope their voices will increase the pressure on Hynes.
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Silence of the Lam
By Kristen Lombardi
The Village Voice - July 26, 2006
Accused of sexually abusing
young boys, a Brooklyn rabbi lit for Israel 22 years ago. Now one
alleged victim wants him brought back for trial.
Abe vividly remembers that wall. The "bragging wall," as he's come to
call it, was crammed with certificates and diplomas. He remembers
fixating on that wall as the Hasidic psychologist advised him on how to
be a good boy. He fixated on it, too, when the psychologist sat beside
him, the man's hand shoved down his pants, stroking Abe's genitals.
Abe was eight years old, the defiant son of a devout Orthodox Jewish
family who was sent to the child psychologist in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Every Sunday for four months in 1984, he'd go for counseling in the
modest house on 60th Street. Sessions started with talk of his
behavior-his mischief at home, his disobedience at yeshiva. Goals were
set, rewards promised. Then, Abe alleges, the psychologist's hand would
be in his underwear.
"He would fondle and play
with my genitals," says Abe, now a thirtyish businessman not willing to
publish his last name. For this former Borough Park resident, whose
Orthodox faith taught him to revere elders, the encounters were
devastating. "I felt very odd, ashamed. I didn't know what to think."
Abe hid the abuse for two decades, not telling a soul, yearning to get
on with life. Until, in May, he discovered what had happened to the man
he claims molested him: He got away.
That child psychologist was Avrohom Mondrowitz,
Abe says, the same one charged with sexually abusing four Brooklyn boys
in February 1985. Once a popular radio host whose Orthodox audience had
known him as "Rabbi," Mondrowitz skipped town before police could arrest him. He surfaced later in Israel, where he's lived for two decades. (Mondrowitz, now 58 and reportedly in Jerusalem, could not be reached for comment.)
Abe isn't one of those four boys. He stopped his sessions in the summer of 1984, never to see Mondrowitz
again. All these years, he's had no idea his alleged abuser was
indicted for molesting kids, on charges that included sodomy. Abe
learned of the outstanding case from a mention in a May 22 New York
article about an ultra-Orthodox rabbi accused of sexual abuse.
Seeing the name in print left Abe stunned. He went online, discovering
postings about the self-styled rabbi on sites for Jewish survivors of
sexual abuse. Reeling, he contacted an attorney. And last month, he
identified himself as a victim to the office of Brooklyn District
Attorney Charles Hynes.
Explains Abe, "I could tell this guy was guilty as heck and I had to do something. He needs to be brought to justice."
The D. A. 's office confirms that Abe appeared at its Jay Street
headquarters in June. Prosecutors interviewed him and recorded his
complaints. Hynes can do little about the allegations because they fall
outside the five-year statute of limitations for sex offenses, according
to Rhonnie Jaus, chief of the sex crimes bureau. All Hynes can do is
try to use Abe's testimony as supporting evidence against Mondrowitz at trial.
Jaus maintains that Hynes is still pursuing the 1985 case. The indictment against Mondrowitz is pending; her bureau remains in touch with the original victims, now in their thirties.
"We standready, willing, and able to prosecute him for his heinous
crimes," Jaus states. "If he returns to this country, we would arrest
him. We would prosecute him. We would do everything we could to achieve
justice in this case."
But there's a lot more
Hynes could be doing to achieve justice, it seems. The one person who
can reopen the push for extradition is the Brooklyn D.A.; he calls the
Justice Department, Justice calls State, State calls Israel. That's how
it works. Michael Lesher, the New Jersey attorney who represents Abe,
believes Hynes could force Mondrowitz to stand trial, if only Hynes would take a more aggressive stance. Past efforts to extradite Mondrowitz
failed only because of a technicality. Under a 1962 treaty, the United
States and Israel have agreed "reciprocally to deliver up persons found
in its territory who have been charged with... offenses mentioned fandl
committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the other. " This
U.S.-Israel extradition treaty lists 31 crimes, including rape, ou might
think the sodomy charges against Mondrowitz
would fit that category. In 1985, though, Israeli law denned rape
narrowly as "having sexual intercourse with a woman without her free
consent. " Oral and anal raping of boys-among the acts of which Mondrowitz is accused-weren't crimes by Israeli standards.
Today, that loophole has been all but closed. Israel has amended its
rape law to recognize males as potential victims, making the act of
forcible sodomy a crime punishable by 2( years in prison. Lesher argues
the change opens the door to revisit the case. "In theory," he says,
"there's no reason for Hynes not to request extradition. "
Extradition lawyers second his opinion. Richard Bierschbach, who
teaches criminal law at Cardozo Law School and who has worked on such
cases, tells the Voice, "I think he would be extraditable now." Changing
the law, he says, effectively changed the treaty. Courts have ruled
that modifications to treaties can be applied retroactively, without
violating a fugitive's due-process rights. "You can say with a fair
degree of confidence that sodomy is now an extraditable offense. "
Even Mondrowitz's
attorney suggests that extradition isn't out of the question. Reached
in his Tel Aviv office, David Ofek says he didn't believe the charges
against his client when defending him in the 1980s, and he doesn't now,
calling them "all lies." Mondrowitz
has not been charged with a crime in Israel. Nor has anyone accused him
of child molestation there. In a heavy accent, Ofek adds, "I found him
to be a marvelous and gentle person, and I don't think he's touched a
child."
Still, Ofek acknowledges that sodomy is a
crime equal to rape in Israel-one that, in general, is extraditable.
"It's a very serious crime," he says, "and we don't like people like
that."
So does that mean his client could be extradited? "After 20 years," he tells the Voice, "try to do it."
Mondrowitz
was a celebrity to start, a Hasidic Frasier of sorts, hosting the
call-in program Life Is for Living at the now defunct WNYN radio
station, doling out advice over the airwaves. But in a five-page
criminal indictment, prosecutors painted Mondrowitz
as an insatiable abuser who allegedly preyed on four boys, ages nine to
15, over four years. The 13 counts against him include eight of sexual
abuse in the first degree, five of sodomy in the first degree.
The indictment may tell only a fraction of the story, says Sal
Catalfumo. Now retired, he was the main sex crimes detective who
investigated Mondrowitz
for four months beginning in November 1984, when the Brooklyn South
precinct got an anonymous tip about a rabbi. "There were a lot of kids
and a lot of allegations," he says.
Catalfumo
identified about a dozen victims to then Brooklyn D. A. Elizabeth
Holtzman, whose office pressed charges on the four strongest cases. He
had interviewed dozens more, he says. Initially, investigators had
suspected Mondrowitz
singled out Orthodox Jewish children who attended his special-education
class at a Foster Avenue yeshiva or his childcounseling practice on
60th Street. Catalfumo says he ended up discovering victims from Italian
Catholic families living on the same street as Mondrowitz
did, Some served as altar boys at a nearby church. Others played with
his seven kids. Two were prepubescent sons of Catalfumo's former high
school classmate.
"Children told me and my
partner that he would be molesting them in one room while their parents
would be waiting in the next," Catalfumo recalls. When police searched
the office, he says, they uncovered child pornography in the desk
drawers.
By the time police had drawn up an
arrest warrant, in December 1984, Catalfumo says, "The guy was gone. He
escaped, and he's never had to face the music. " All these years later,
the former investigator cannot quite put this unresolved case behind
him. He cannot quite forget about those, like Abe, who claim to be
victims.
Confides Catalfumo, "Personally, I'd
like to catch this guy. He shouldn't be able to evade prosecution for
the rest of his life."
The Mondrowitz
case has also haunted Abe's attorney. Lesher's made a lonely campaign
out of researching it, filing freedom-of-information requests to obtain
classified records. Beginning in 1999, he spent two years collecting
documents from the U.S. State and Justice departments chronicling the
feds' battle to extradite the fugitive-a battle that stops in 1993,
courtesy of Hynes. Lesher shared his files with the Voice for this
article. (The Justice Department declined to comment on the case,
referring questions to State; its spokesperson refused even to speak
generally about the U.S.-Israel extradition treaty.)
The paper trail starts just as the indictment was about to come down.
In January 1985, according to the records, D. A. Holtzman's office began
pushing the feds to bring Mondrowitz
back to Brooklyn for trial, calling the Justice Department. Two months
later, her office made a formal request for "the provisional arrest in
Israel of Avrohom Mondrowitz."
Prosecutors sent along materials for extradition in September, and kept
in contact with their federal counterparts for the next two years.
Internal records suggest that Washington officials felt substantial
pressure from Holtzman.
"Natives of Brooklyn are
becoming restless," reads one February 1986 memorandum, "and we are
receiving calls from Kings County District Attorney's Office."
Another cable, dated November 1986, reports that the Israeli official
on the case "has from time to time been in telephonic communication
directly with the prosecutor's office in New York City to discuss the
matter."
Yet another, from March 1987: "Relay the
gist of this development to prosecuting attorney handling this case
[who] had phoned on February 17."
Now a Manhattan
attorney specializing in government relations, Holtzman declined to
discuss her office's efforts to seek extradition. "I can tell you that
we didn't sit on cases like that in my office," she says.
Still, these early requests were stymied. As early as 1985, Israeli
officials had informed the U.S. that rape, under Israeli law, didn't
cover sodomy. "The Mondrowitz
case as presented cannot be acted upon under the terms of the existing
U.S.-Israel extradition agreement," states an April 1985 cable.
Federal officials got creative and asked Israel to consider expelling Mondrowitz, then an American citizen on a tourist visa. For years, the case sat in a kind of legal limbo.
And then, in February 1987, after a change in leadership, the Israeli Interior Ministry ordered Mondrowitz
deported to Brooklyn. Ofek appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court,
asking for a stay and seeking access to the U.S. extradition package. It
included four affidavits from John Doe victims. It also included a
letter, purportedly written by a Borough Park social worker, charging
that Mondrowitz
had infected 28 boys with HIV/AIDS. The claim would be stunning now;
back then, it was made more so by the fact that so many people didn't
understand the virus.
"When you say, 20 years
ago, that the man had infected children with AIDS, it means that the man
would kill children," Ofek says. There were no drug cocktails in 1987.
Not many hospitals in Israel could administer an HIV test. Eventually,
Ofek says, his client found one. The results came back negative. The
court threw out the deportation order. "The United States wanted
extradition and the Israeli government wanted to deport him-and I
stopped it."
To hear Hynes's office toll it now,
extradition represents the one barrier to prosecuting this case. Just
last May, Jaus says, her bureau reviewed its files and consulted with
Israeli legal authorities, as well as federal officials. The verdict?
"Under the current treaty," she reports, "he is charged with
anonextraditable offense."
Or not. In 1988,
Israel amended its rape law to cover the act of homosexual rape.
Internal federal letters make note of the change, urging a second look
at extradition.
"An amendment to the Israeli penal code . . . presents us, we believe, with an opportunity to reopen the extradition case of Avrohom Mondrowitz," reads one March 1988 telegram from the American embassy in Tel Aviv to the State Department in Washington, D.C.
Interestingly, no records show that federal officials called Holtzman
to relay the news. And there is nothing to suggest that her office was
keeping abreast of the developments, or even knew about the change. Just
when the U.S. may have gained proper grounds to extradite Mondrowitz, the paper trail fades.
But if Holtzman missed a key opportunity, Hynes has apparently plain
sat on the case. He became the D. A. in 1990. In the federal file, there
is no record of any activity from Hynes on the matter until 1993, when
Justice officials called his office. That's when he all but dropped the
case-approving a decision to end extradition attempts forgood. As one
September 1993 Justice Department letter details, prosecutors "contacted
our office and advised that they would not be pursuing the case any
further at this time."
"Hynes has never been hot to extradite Mondrowitz,"
charges Lesher. Why would Hynes allow a fugitive to evade prosecution
through an old loophole, especially when a new victim has come forward
to testify? "It's a compelling argument," observes Maryellen Fullerton,
who teaches international criminal law at Brooklyn Law School. "If I were
the Brooklyn D. A., I'd consider it."
Bruce
Zagaris, an extradition lawyer in Washington, D.C., notes that the
U.S.-Israel treaty is being updated, and that the new protocol would
make it even easier to deliver up someone, like Mondrowitz,
whose alleged acts haven't fallen neatly into the list of specified
offenses. The protocol would replace the list with a provision defining
any offense extraditable "as long as the crime is punishable by one year
or more and as long as it's a crime in both countries."
So, Zagaris offers, "Yes, I'd say this guy is extraditable. And under
this new protocol, there is even more of a chance that he could be."
At the very least, argues Bierschbach, the Cardozo professor, "you
cannot flat-out say that he's not extraditable. You can make the
argument, but it's weak."
Even so, Hynes
spokesperson Jerry Schmetterer maintains, flatly: "After reviewing the
files and consulting with authorities, our position remains that under
the current treaty, Mondrowitz
cannot be extradited.... He was charged with sodomy and the treaty has
changed. It's our position this change is not retroactive."
Told that experts say otherwise, he snaps, "That's fine. You write your story. This is the position of the district attorney."
Maybe Hynes has his own reasons for not pushing extradition. In
Brooklyn politics, the Orthodox community can wield considerable
influence. Political consultant Hank Sheinkopf explains, "They vote, and
they vote in large numbers often." He estimates that the Orthodox
population accounts for some 30 percent of the borough's electorate,
from Williamsburg to Crown Heights, Borough Park, Flatbush, and Midwood.
Especially in ultra-Orthodox areas, rabbis tend to pick candidates and
congregants cast votes accordingly.
"The rabbis
are very important because they tell their followers who to get behind,"
says Sheinkopf. For a politician, he says, that means "you have to play
to them."
Hynes has worked hard to court the
community over the years. In 1990, he became the first D. A. in the city
to convene a Jewish advisory council, which kept leaders abreast of
cases involving Jewish defendants or complainants. The council is now
defunct, says Schmetterer, replaced by the office's full-time liaison to
the Hasidic community, Henna White, herself a Lubavitcher. (He refused
to let the Voice interview White for this article, saying, "It wouldn't
be her place to talk about this case.") Hynes has been commended for
launching such initiatives as Project Eden, a Hasidic-sanctioned program
that reaches out to ultra-Orthodox victims of domestic violence.
Aaron Twerski, the dean of Hofstra Law School and a former council
member, describes Hynes's relationship to the Orthodox community as
"quite positive." He explains, "Hynes is a presence in the community.
He's been responsive."
But Hynes has bumped up
against the community before. The most dramatic example came in 1999,
when the D. A. 's office charged a prominent Hasidic rabbi named Bernard
Freilich with witness tampering and intimidation for allegedly making
death threats against an Orthodox woman who was to testify in a
sex-abuse case. The community reacted with fury, organizing
demonstrations, accusing Hynes of anti-Semitism. Freilich wound up
acquitted at a 2000 trial.
Lesher says the D.A.
has a habit of backing down from prosecutions that Orthodox rabbinical
leaders would rather handle themselves. He has researched two instances
where the D.A. initiated criminal proceedings against accused Hasidic
abusers, only to let them fizzle. In each, he notes, "it was community
opposition that spelled the difference."
With Mondrowitz,
the Orthodox community hasn't exactly clamored for justice. No one
dared talk publicly about the scandal when it broke. Catalfumo says
rabbis refused to answer questions, parent: refused to file complaints.
Even those who wanted to see Mondrowitz punished-or dead-wouldn't cooperate with authorities, the detective says, for fear their kids would become tainted by a trial.
Catalfumo doubts the D.A. would do anything to upset the Orthodox
community today, and he doubts the community would want to revisit the
case. "Let's face it, I don't think they're interested in seeing this
surface again," he says. Indeed, Orthodox rabbis and politicians who
remember the Mondrowitz case declined to talk about it with the Voice One Borough Park resident with ties to the same Hasidic sect as Mondrowitz offered this opinion: "Once a case has been put to sleep, it's best to leave it alone."
Twerski, of Hofstra, advocates "zero tolerance" in the community for sexual abuse. But when told about the newly vocal Mondrowitz
victim and his desire to reopen the case, Twerski replies, "I don't
know what to say about that. That's an old, old case and I'm not going
to comment on it."
Jaus, for her part, bristles at the suggestion of special treatment. In 2000, her bureau got word from State officials tha Mondrowitz
was returning to the States. It contacted the original four victims. It
had D.C. police ready to arrest him. He never showed up.
"If we heard this information again, we'd do the same thing," she states.
Those words offer little consolation to Abe. Sitting in the dining room
at his attorney's suburban home, Abe hunches over the table, his arms
across his chest, his eyes on his Blackberry, as he relays what he told
prosecutors on June 7. How Mondrowitz
had begun molesting him during a counseling session one day, and wound
up making it routine. How the psychologist had even invited him
upstairs, and fondled him there.
Abe had hoped
his testimony would inspire Hynes to push for extradition, he says. "I
came away with the realization tha my experience is a footnote in a case
the D.A. won't do anything about."
At least, Abe
believes, not without incentive. So on June 24, he contacted an
anonymous blogger known as Un-Orthodox Jew, who has posted controversial
diatribes about sexual abuse and cover-up in the Hasidic world. Abe
posted his own entry, writing:
"MONDROWITZ ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! Has anyone contacted you as being a victim of Avrohom Mondrowitz?
... There is renewed interest in this case & ... I am trying to
find out if other victims have also recently come forward so that we can
pool our resources & pressure the DA's office."
So far, he's received little response, though two Orthodox Jewish men who claim to be victims of Mondrowitz have contacted the Voice, expressing a desire to bring him back.
To Abe, it all seems so upside down-the way Hynes didn't push for
extradition in 1993, the way he won't now. That his alleged abuser can
live in Israel, his where-abouts known, yet run around scot-free, seems
almost as bad as the abuse.
As Abe confides, "That makes it seem like a big slap in the face by the D.A."
_________________________________________________________________________________
Child Sex Abuse Case Still Haunts
The Cold Case of Avrohom Mondrowitz and the Silencing of a Community
By ROXANNA SHERWOOD
ABC - October 11, 2006
Oct. 11, 2006 — - Retired New York Police Department Det. Pat Kehoe still remembers a phone call she got more than 20 years ago, from a person making allegations that a rabbi was sexually abusing children in his neighborhood.
"I never received a call like that in my whole career in the New York City Police Department. Never," Kehoe told Cynthia McFadden in a recent interview.
"I'll never forget it because unfortunately it was my birthday, November 21 1984. I was working in the Brooklyn Sex Crimes squad and I received an anonymous call from a male who started to say that there was a rabbi and gave the name and he was abusing people on this block," she said.
Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, as he called himself, lived on a tree-lined block in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Kehoe and her partner, Sal Catafulmo, went out to the neighborhood where Italians and Hasidic Jews lived side-by-side.
At one of the first addresses they tried, she says a resident told her "Everyone knows Rabbi Mondrowitz. He's good to all our children. He buys them bicycles and takes them away on weekends and things."
That might sound like a recommendation, but not to Kehoe.
"With that information I got very scared," she said.
Kehoe's background in an NYPD pedophilia squad taught her to recognize the signs of pedophilia.
"Pedophiles have a pattern with children to get their confidence and send their so-called love, you might say, and buy them things," she said.
What she heard from the children themselves only confirmed her gut feelings.
"We brought them in without their parents," Kehoe said. "They started to tell us, 'The rabbi is our friend. He takes us away,' and things like that. As the questions became more difficult for the children -- 'Did anything ever happen? Did anything sexual ever happen? Are you aware of it happening to anyone else while you were there?' -- they all broke down and cried, each one separately."
According to Kehoe, the children painted a clear picture of abuse. Kehoe says the children told her that the rabbi had fondled them, had sexual relations with them, and that he had fondled others in front of them.
Apparently the self-proclaimed rabbi -- Mondrowitz had no formal rabbinical credentials -- was counseling young Orthodox boys in the basement office of his home in Borough Park.
Kehoe and her partner immediately obtained a search warrant for his home. When they got to the address, there was no answer at the door, so Kehoe climbed through the basement window.
The alleged pedophile and his family had fled and his house was completely vacant but for what Kehoe says were up to a hundred files of Orthodox boys that Mondrowitz had been counseling in his basement office.
Kehoe and her partner reached out to all of the Orthodox boys' families, she says, but no one would talk.
"They were members of the Hassidic community, and as we found out through the investigation -- at the time I wasn't completely aware of all the different rules in the Hassidic community. And one of the things is that if one of them is ever sexually abused, whether it be by a pedophile or raped, there's a very large stigma that prevents them from getting married and going forward with their lives if this is ever found out or brought to anyone's attention," she said.
The only victims that cooperated with the investigation were Italian. They were neighborhood boys who trusted the rabbi because he bought them gifts like bicycles. Not a single Orthodox Jewish boy or their parents would talk to the police.
The statements of four Italian boys, aged 11 through 16, were the basis for the indictment against Avrohom Mondrowitz. He was facing eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child, and five counts of sodomy in the first degree.
The allegations against Mondrowitz were shocking to those who knew him. Rabbi Herbert Bomzer has been a fixture among ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn for more than 50 years. He is president of the Flatbush Rabbinical Board, composed of nearly 100 rabbis. He hired Mondrowitz to counsel boys at a school for Orthodox boys in the late 1970s.
"He was very effective, so much so that toward the end of the school year when they were planning the graduation exercise the student reps requested that I should invite him to be the guest speaker at the exercise," Bomzer said.
Young boys were equally impressed with the charismatic older man. Mark Weiss was one of them. At 13 years old, growing up in Chicago, Weiss says he was having trouble fitting in and reconciling his orthodoxy with the outside world. In the summer of 1980, his father sent Weiss to New York to receive counseling from Mondrowitz.
"He had kind of a sporty little car, and he had this really cool sound system in there. And right off the bat I remember being just completely overwhelmed with just like how cool this guy is," Weiss said. "He took me out to eat. He took me out to lunch, to dinner. He took me to an amusement park. He took me sightseeing here."
Weiss trusted the man so much that with his family away on a trip to the mountains, he didn't hesitate when Mondrowitz invited him to sleep in his own bed with him, telling him, Weiss says, that it might be more comfortable there than in another bedroom in the front of the house.
What Weiss says happened in the rabbi's bedroom is something that even to this day makes him uncomfortable to talk about, but he knows how important it is to tell his story, not only for the sake of raising consciousness but for his own healing.
He says that over the course of the week he spent with Mondrowitz, the older man sodomized him on multiple occasions.
Weiss says he tucked the experience away in the deepest recesses of his mind and did not think of it again, that is, until five years later, in 1984, when as an 18-year-old, he was celebrating the holidays in Chicago where he says Mondrowitz was also visiting family.
"I look across the room, and across the room I see Remel Mondrowitz," Weiss said. "It just hit me like a ton of bricks what had happened and I froze. And I just sort of went into a state of shock."
Everything came back to him, he said.
"I realized that I was sexually molested when I was thirteen years old," he said
Weiss immediately turned to his parents for guidance. He first told his mother.
"She was just completely incredulous. She couldn't accept what I was telling her," Weiss said. "What I was telling her was essentially shaking the entire infrastructure to its foundation, really, because it was more than just me being molested. It was just the unraveling of the entire foundation of her support system and of her religious infrastructure."
His father was also devastated and confused -- after all, this was a man he respected and knew. Weiss said his father told him Mondrowitz was a frum man -- a religious Jew.
His father's belief that this is perhaps an experience better kept quiet is a view, Weiss said, his father still maintains today.
"Just a few short days ago, my father was in a panic that this was just going to turn into a huge Chillul Hashem, which is a disgrace of God's name," Weiss said. "A bad image would be cast upon Judaism and orthodox Judaism and the Jewish people."
Now a 39-year-old husband and father of three sons, Weiss said he has carried his painful memory of abuse silently for years. About five years ago, when he and his family were living in Denver, he saw an announcement in a Jewish publication for an event for survivors of sexual molestation.
He was ecstatic at the prospect that his community was finally prepared to confront this problem, so he immediately booked a flight to New York.
"It was going to be this night in which survivors were to be able to meet with leaders of the Jewish community and they were to be able to address and to tell their stories essentially and to be heard for the first time, really, in a public forum in the right wing religious community," he said. But the event did not unfold as he had imagined or hoped it would.
"It was very clear, unfortunately, that the rabbis who were there and the leaders of our community didn't really have an understanding of what it was they were there to do," he said.
"None of the survivors got to say a word. Any questions that were to be asked were written down on these little index cards and they sort of cherry picked the most benign questions and subsequent comments that were followed up by the rabbis really had nothing to do with actual sexual molestation whatsoever," he said.
When the evening was over, Weiss said he was devastated.
"Anybody who was really a victim and really had gone through some horrible experiences was really shell-shocked. We sort of all walked around like we had just survived a plane crash."
A Fall 2000 ad in the Jewish Image published an announcement for one such event, "Let's talk about what never happened..." and in small letters underneath "...but it did." Another ad that ran in a 2001 Jewish Observer advertising one such event bears in its heading a clear message of silence: "SHHH..."
"Because of the unwillingness to expose it, pedophiles can operate pretty safely in the orthodox community?" McFadden asked Mark Weiss. "It's fertile ground. It's fertile ground," Weiss readily replied.
"I've met victims and survivors who have been told by their rabbis they shouldn't say anything because this is what we call Lashone Harah," explained Rabbi Mark Dratch, an officer of the Rabbinical Council of America and head of JSafe, an organization to help Orthodox Jewish victims of domestic violence and sex abuse.
The biblical concept of Lashone Harah is "gossip or slander, a biblical prohibition against maligning another person, against speaking ill of another person," and holds even when the allegations being made are proven true, Dratch said.
There's another biblical concept at play when dealing with sex abuse and domestic violence in the community, he said.
"It's called Mesira. And that's a prohibition on the books of reporting fellow Jews to the authorities under any circumstances," Dratch said.
The mesira edict was published in a Yiddish-language Orthodox Brooklyn newspaper called Der Blatt in the wake of a case of a 6-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy who had brought allegations against a rabbi who had been tutoring him. The case was brought before the Brooklyn district attorney, who ultimately disbanded the grand jury on the case.
Sociologist (Name Removed), an Orthodox Jewish woman who studies sex abuse in the community and who says she has spoken to members of the victim's family, said the Hebrew publication that ran under the title "Severe Warning and Prohibition" drove the child's family out of town.
"Rabbis sign on to this edict about Mesira stating that he who informs to the Christian authorities can be murdered at the first opportunity," (Name Removed) said. "Well of course that sends such a chill to the family that they pick themselves up with their children, from Brooklyn and they ran out of the county."
"Victims are very hesitant to come forward," Dratch said. "Number one is the denial of the community. So there is a fear that they are not going to be believed.
"Secondly, it's -- I'll use a wonderful Yiddish word -- it's called Shanda, the shame of it all. And individuals are afraid of what the impact of their report will be on themselves personally and on their family and on the extended family," he said.
"The shame is that Mondrowitz didn't get arrested. To me that was the shame," Kehoe said.
Mondrowitz, now 58 years old, has been living comfortably in Israel since 1985, and the retired NYPD detective said she believes he has been amassing new victims.
"Hundreds, I'm sure. He's been in Israel almost 20 years," Kehoe said. "It's a sickness. It's something that you have to do every time when you find a new victim."
In the wake of recent allegations against another Brooklyn Orthodox rabbi, several Orthodox Jewish men alleging that they too were sexually abused by Mondrowitz have come forward to tell of the abuse that they say has haunted them.
Michael, an attorney who represents six alleged victims of Mondrowitz, including Mark Weiss, said it is similar to what has happened with the Catholic Church.
"The comparisons are obvious, but I would say at the same time that what we are seeing in the Jewish community is in some respects worse because it's more institutionalized," he said.
Rabbi Mark Dratch agrees.
"As an outsider to the Catholic Church, it seems to me that there is an infrastructure or a hierarchy and they have the mechanism, they really do have the mechanism to effect systemic change in a much easier way in a much more efficient way and a much quicker way because of that hierarchy," Dratch said. "In the Orthodox world, we don't have such a hierarchy. There is no pope and there are no levels of responsibility and answerability."
Dratch said there is no way to really gauge how widespread the problem is in the community, "because of this conspiracy of silence."
All parties involved with this story wanted to make sure that one thing was absolutely clear -- that there is sex abuse against children in every community. They would like to see changes in the way some rabbinical leaders handle the allegations when they surface.
"The biggest thing that I worry about really is that I represent the story well and not pre-cast it off in way that this just looks like a besmirch of -- a black eye and a besmirching of the Orthodox Jewish world," Weiss said. "But the truth is, is that it is a black eye to everybody. This problem knows no borders and no boundaries."
"The community senses there is a crisis here and that something very serious needs to be done," Dratch said.
ABC News easily found Mondrowitz living in a quiet Jerusalem neighborhood, his name prominently displayed on a mailbox. He even lectures at the Jerusalem College of Engineering.
He politely declined to be interviewed for the story, and thanked us for the opportunity.
"Mondrowitz proved to be brilliant at working the system," Michael said. "He understands this Orthodox culture, if possible, better than we do. He understands just what it will do and just what it won't do, what he can get away with and when he has to run. He's manipulated it masterfully and that is really a shameful commentary on the community. That a man like this understands it so well and has been able to turn it so well to his advantage all these years."
"And I was told when I embarked on this crusade to examine, explore sex abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community that Mondrowitz was the key, what he was able to do and how he comported himself and how the community so adroitly managed to cover up for what he did and to keep things quiet as he was out of the country. Just to keep the victims suppressed. To keep their voices silenced," (Name Removed) said.
Though some members of the Orthodox community told ABC News this is a very old case and very old charges with very deep wounds and that it would be better to just let it go now, but Michael told a different story.
"That's not what my clients believe and they're the victims carrying the wounds," he said. "That's not what I believe and I belong to the community they do."
Michael, who plans to push the Brooklyn district attorney to try to extradite Mondrowitz.
"This man is not an ancient man. He's only 58 years old now. He was 37 when he fled the country. These victims are not ancient people. These are people in their late 30s and early 40s. They are seething, still seething with what was done to them," Michael said. "And as one of them put it to me, every day that Mondrowitz can live openly in Israel knowing that he's safe from prosecution because nobody cares, is another day that they are victimized all over again."
The question of whether Mondrowitz could be extradited to stand trial in the United States is unclear. When Mondrowitz fled, then Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman made swift moves to have the alleged pedophile extradited, but under Israeli law at the time, sodomy against boys was not recognized as an extraditable offense, so she was unsuccessful.
Israeli law has since been changed.
The current Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes, is not trying to extradite at this time.
Weiss said he believes that speaking about the issue of sex abuse is the only answer.
"Throwing it under the rug will do no good. You need to just come out and say it and you know what, we are better people for it," he said. "Nobody's going to look down upon the Orthodox Jewish community negatively because we're talking about this. They are going to come to admire us for being straight about it and admitting we have a problem and we're going to solve it.
The Cold Case of Avrohom Mondrowitz and the Silencing of a Community
By ROXANNA SHERWOOD
ABC - October 11, 2006
Oct. 11, 2006 — - Retired New York Police Department Det. Pat Kehoe still remembers a phone call she got more than 20 years ago, from a person making allegations that a rabbi was sexually abusing children in his neighborhood.
"I never received a call like that in my whole career in the New York City Police Department. Never," Kehoe told Cynthia McFadden in a recent interview.
"I'll never forget it because unfortunately it was my birthday, November 21 1984. I was working in the Brooklyn Sex Crimes squad and I received an anonymous call from a male who started to say that there was a rabbi and gave the name and he was abusing people on this block," she said.
Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, as he called himself, lived on a tree-lined block in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Kehoe and her partner, Sal Catafulmo, went out to the neighborhood where Italians and Hasidic Jews lived side-by-side.
At one of the first addresses they tried, she says a resident told her "Everyone knows Rabbi Mondrowitz. He's good to all our children. He buys them bicycles and takes them away on weekends and things."
That might sound like a recommendation, but not to Kehoe.
"With that information I got very scared," she said.
Kehoe's background in an NYPD pedophilia squad taught her to recognize the signs of pedophilia.
"Pedophiles have a pattern with children to get their confidence and send their so-called love, you might say, and buy them things," she said.
What she heard from the children themselves only confirmed her gut feelings.
"We brought them in without their parents," Kehoe said. "They started to tell us, 'The rabbi is our friend. He takes us away,' and things like that. As the questions became more difficult for the children -- 'Did anything ever happen? Did anything sexual ever happen? Are you aware of it happening to anyone else while you were there?' -- they all broke down and cried, each one separately."
According to Kehoe, the children painted a clear picture of abuse. Kehoe says the children told her that the rabbi had fondled them, had sexual relations with them, and that he had fondled others in front of them.
Apparently the self-proclaimed rabbi -- Mondrowitz had no formal rabbinical credentials -- was counseling young Orthodox boys in the basement office of his home in Borough Park.
Kehoe and her partner immediately obtained a search warrant for his home. When they got to the address, there was no answer at the door, so Kehoe climbed through the basement window.
The alleged pedophile and his family had fled and his house was completely vacant but for what Kehoe says were up to a hundred files of Orthodox boys that Mondrowitz had been counseling in his basement office.
Kehoe and her partner reached out to all of the Orthodox boys' families, she says, but no one would talk.
"They were members of the Hassidic community, and as we found out through the investigation -- at the time I wasn't completely aware of all the different rules in the Hassidic community. And one of the things is that if one of them is ever sexually abused, whether it be by a pedophile or raped, there's a very large stigma that prevents them from getting married and going forward with their lives if this is ever found out or brought to anyone's attention," she said.
The only victims that cooperated with the investigation were Italian. They were neighborhood boys who trusted the rabbi because he bought them gifts like bicycles. Not a single Orthodox Jewish boy or their parents would talk to the police.
The statements of four Italian boys, aged 11 through 16, were the basis for the indictment against Avrohom Mondrowitz. He was facing eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child, and five counts of sodomy in the first degree.
The allegations against Mondrowitz were shocking to those who knew him. Rabbi Herbert Bomzer has been a fixture among ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn for more than 50 years. He is president of the Flatbush Rabbinical Board, composed of nearly 100 rabbis. He hired Mondrowitz to counsel boys at a school for Orthodox boys in the late 1970s.
"He was very effective, so much so that toward the end of the school year when they were planning the graduation exercise the student reps requested that I should invite him to be the guest speaker at the exercise," Bomzer said.
Young boys were equally impressed with the charismatic older man. Mark Weiss was one of them. At 13 years old, growing up in Chicago, Weiss says he was having trouble fitting in and reconciling his orthodoxy with the outside world. In the summer of 1980, his father sent Weiss to New York to receive counseling from Mondrowitz.
"He had kind of a sporty little car, and he had this really cool sound system in there. And right off the bat I remember being just completely overwhelmed with just like how cool this guy is," Weiss said. "He took me out to eat. He took me out to lunch, to dinner. He took me to an amusement park. He took me sightseeing here."
Weiss trusted the man so much that with his family away on a trip to the mountains, he didn't hesitate when Mondrowitz invited him to sleep in his own bed with him, telling him, Weiss says, that it might be more comfortable there than in another bedroom in the front of the house.
What Weiss says happened in the rabbi's bedroom is something that even to this day makes him uncomfortable to talk about, but he knows how important it is to tell his story, not only for the sake of raising consciousness but for his own healing.
He says that over the course of the week he spent with Mondrowitz, the older man sodomized him on multiple occasions.
Weiss says he tucked the experience away in the deepest recesses of his mind and did not think of it again, that is, until five years later, in 1984, when as an 18-year-old, he was celebrating the holidays in Chicago where he says Mondrowitz was also visiting family.
"I look across the room, and across the room I see Remel Mondrowitz," Weiss said. "It just hit me like a ton of bricks what had happened and I froze. And I just sort of went into a state of shock."
Everything came back to him, he said.
"I realized that I was sexually molested when I was thirteen years old," he said
Weiss immediately turned to his parents for guidance. He first told his mother.
"She was just completely incredulous. She couldn't accept what I was telling her," Weiss said. "What I was telling her was essentially shaking the entire infrastructure to its foundation, really, because it was more than just me being molested. It was just the unraveling of the entire foundation of her support system and of her religious infrastructure."
His father was also devastated and confused -- after all, this was a man he respected and knew. Weiss said his father told him Mondrowitz was a frum man -- a religious Jew.
His father's belief that this is perhaps an experience better kept quiet is a view, Weiss said, his father still maintains today.
"Just a few short days ago, my father was in a panic that this was just going to turn into a huge Chillul Hashem, which is a disgrace of God's name," Weiss said. "A bad image would be cast upon Judaism and orthodox Judaism and the Jewish people."
Now a 39-year-old husband and father of three sons, Weiss said he has carried his painful memory of abuse silently for years. About five years ago, when he and his family were living in Denver, he saw an announcement in a Jewish publication for an event for survivors of sexual molestation.
He was ecstatic at the prospect that his community was finally prepared to confront this problem, so he immediately booked a flight to New York.
"It was going to be this night in which survivors were to be able to meet with leaders of the Jewish community and they were to be able to address and to tell their stories essentially and to be heard for the first time, really, in a public forum in the right wing religious community," he said. But the event did not unfold as he had imagined or hoped it would.
"It was very clear, unfortunately, that the rabbis who were there and the leaders of our community didn't really have an understanding of what it was they were there to do," he said.
"None of the survivors got to say a word. Any questions that were to be asked were written down on these little index cards and they sort of cherry picked the most benign questions and subsequent comments that were followed up by the rabbis really had nothing to do with actual sexual molestation whatsoever," he said.
When the evening was over, Weiss said he was devastated.
"Anybody who was really a victim and really had gone through some horrible experiences was really shell-shocked. We sort of all walked around like we had just survived a plane crash."
A Fall 2000 ad in the Jewish Image published an announcement for one such event, "Let's talk about what never happened..." and in small letters underneath "...but it did." Another ad that ran in a 2001 Jewish Observer advertising one such event bears in its heading a clear message of silence: "SHHH..."
"Because of the unwillingness to expose it, pedophiles can operate pretty safely in the orthodox community?" McFadden asked Mark Weiss. "It's fertile ground. It's fertile ground," Weiss readily replied.
"I've met victims and survivors who have been told by their rabbis they shouldn't say anything because this is what we call Lashone Harah," explained Rabbi Mark Dratch, an officer of the Rabbinical Council of America and head of JSafe, an organization to help Orthodox Jewish victims of domestic violence and sex abuse.
The biblical concept of Lashone Harah is "gossip or slander, a biblical prohibition against maligning another person, against speaking ill of another person," and holds even when the allegations being made are proven true, Dratch said.
There's another biblical concept at play when dealing with sex abuse and domestic violence in the community, he said.
"It's called Mesira. And that's a prohibition on the books of reporting fellow Jews to the authorities under any circumstances," Dratch said.
The mesira edict was published in a Yiddish-language Orthodox Brooklyn newspaper called Der Blatt in the wake of a case of a 6-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy who had brought allegations against a rabbi who had been tutoring him. The case was brought before the Brooklyn district attorney, who ultimately disbanded the grand jury on the case.
Sociologist (Name Removed), an Orthodox Jewish woman who studies sex abuse in the community and who says she has spoken to members of the victim's family, said the Hebrew publication that ran under the title "Severe Warning and Prohibition" drove the child's family out of town.
"Rabbis sign on to this edict about Mesira stating that he who informs to the Christian authorities can be murdered at the first opportunity," (Name Removed) said. "Well of course that sends such a chill to the family that they pick themselves up with their children, from Brooklyn and they ran out of the county."
"Victims are very hesitant to come forward," Dratch said. "Number one is the denial of the community. So there is a fear that they are not going to be believed.
"Secondly, it's -- I'll use a wonderful Yiddish word -- it's called Shanda, the shame of it all. And individuals are afraid of what the impact of their report will be on themselves personally and on their family and on the extended family," he said.
"The shame is that Mondrowitz didn't get arrested. To me that was the shame," Kehoe said.
Mondrowitz, now 58 years old, has been living comfortably in Israel since 1985, and the retired NYPD detective said she believes he has been amassing new victims.
"Hundreds, I'm sure. He's been in Israel almost 20 years," Kehoe said. "It's a sickness. It's something that you have to do every time when you find a new victim."
In the wake of recent allegations against another Brooklyn Orthodox rabbi, several Orthodox Jewish men alleging that they too were sexually abused by Mondrowitz have come forward to tell of the abuse that they say has haunted them.
Michael, an attorney who represents six alleged victims of Mondrowitz, including Mark Weiss, said it is similar to what has happened with the Catholic Church.
"The comparisons are obvious, but I would say at the same time that what we are seeing in the Jewish community is in some respects worse because it's more institutionalized," he said.
Rabbi Mark Dratch agrees.
"As an outsider to the Catholic Church, it seems to me that there is an infrastructure or a hierarchy and they have the mechanism, they really do have the mechanism to effect systemic change in a much easier way in a much more efficient way and a much quicker way because of that hierarchy," Dratch said. "In the Orthodox world, we don't have such a hierarchy. There is no pope and there are no levels of responsibility and answerability."
Dratch said there is no way to really gauge how widespread the problem is in the community, "because of this conspiracy of silence."
All parties involved with this story wanted to make sure that one thing was absolutely clear -- that there is sex abuse against children in every community. They would like to see changes in the way some rabbinical leaders handle the allegations when they surface.
"The biggest thing that I worry about really is that I represent the story well and not pre-cast it off in way that this just looks like a besmirch of -- a black eye and a besmirching of the Orthodox Jewish world," Weiss said. "But the truth is, is that it is a black eye to everybody. This problem knows no borders and no boundaries."
"The community senses there is a crisis here and that something very serious needs to be done," Dratch said.
ABC News easily found Mondrowitz living in a quiet Jerusalem neighborhood, his name prominently displayed on a mailbox. He even lectures at the Jerusalem College of Engineering.
He politely declined to be interviewed for the story, and thanked us for the opportunity.
"Mondrowitz proved to be brilliant at working the system," Michael said. "He understands this Orthodox culture, if possible, better than we do. He understands just what it will do and just what it won't do, what he can get away with and when he has to run. He's manipulated it masterfully and that is really a shameful commentary on the community. That a man like this understands it so well and has been able to turn it so well to his advantage all these years."
"And I was told when I embarked on this crusade to examine, explore sex abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community that Mondrowitz was the key, what he was able to do and how he comported himself and how the community so adroitly managed to cover up for what he did and to keep things quiet as he was out of the country. Just to keep the victims suppressed. To keep their voices silenced," (Name Removed) said.
Though some members of the Orthodox community told ABC News this is a very old case and very old charges with very deep wounds and that it would be better to just let it go now, but Michael told a different story.
"That's not what my clients believe and they're the victims carrying the wounds," he said. "That's not what I believe and I belong to the community they do."
Michael, who plans to push the Brooklyn district attorney to try to extradite Mondrowitz.
"This man is not an ancient man. He's only 58 years old now. He was 37 when he fled the country. These victims are not ancient people. These are people in their late 30s and early 40s. They are seething, still seething with what was done to them," Michael said. "And as one of them put it to me, every day that Mondrowitz can live openly in Israel knowing that he's safe from prosecution because nobody cares, is another day that they are victimized all over again."
The question of whether Mondrowitz could be extradited to stand trial in the United States is unclear. When Mondrowitz fled, then Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman made swift moves to have the alleged pedophile extradited, but under Israeli law at the time, sodomy against boys was not recognized as an extraditable offense, so she was unsuccessful.
Israeli law has since been changed.
The current Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes, is not trying to extradite at this time.
Weiss said he believes that speaking about the issue of sex abuse is the only answer.
"Throwing it under the rug will do no good. You need to just come out and say it and you know what, we are better people for it," he said. "Nobody's going to look down upon the Orthodox Jewish community negatively because we're talking about this. They are going to come to admire us for being straight about it and admitting we have a problem and we're going to solve it.
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Did an alleged sex abuser escape justice?
By Sarah Wallace
WABC (NY) - November 8, 2006
(New York - WABC, November 8, 2006) - Members of an orthodox community in Brooklyn are demanding justice. The man known as Rabbi Mondrowitz was indicted on sodomy 21 years ago but fled to Israel and is now living there a free man. The problem? The Brooklyn DA's office says it can't extradite him.
There are allegations that justice is not only delayed here, but being denied to victims while Mondrowitz remains free. There are now demands for state officials to appoint a special prosecutor to look into sex abuses cases in Brooklyn because the DA is allegedly bowing to political pressure.
Mark Weiss: "I guarantee a pedophile then is a pedophile now?"
He's talking about this man, known in the community as Rabbi Avrohom Mondrovitz. As video from Nightline shows, he's alive and well and living in Jerusalem in spite of a multi-count indictment in Brooklyn accusing him of sodomy and other crimes against children. Mondrovitz fled to Israel after his indictment more than 20 years ago.
Retired NYPD detective Pat Keogh investigated the Mondrowitz case, interviewing several alleged victims in this Borough Park neighborhood.
"The anonymous call said that there are children living on the block, gentile children, that was the way they told us, that had been abused by this man called Avrohom Mondrowitz," Keogh said.
Although some Orthodox Jewish families had begun to move into the neighborhood, 20 years ago it was largely Italian. All of the children who came forward and accused Mondrowitz were Italian. Detective Keogh says she was told there were orthodox victims too, but she got nowhere with the community.
Keogh: "The attitude that I thought of, was that we were like the enemy ..."
Sarah Wallace: "You didn't think you could tell anybody?"
Victim: "No, I didn't think of telling anyone ... just the way it is."
This orthodox Rabbi now claims he was molested as a child by Mondrowitz at his home. Another man is now speaking out, as well.
Sarah Wallace: "He molested you for how long?"'
Victim: "For about 3 years."
Because of their positions in the orthodox community, these two don't want to show their faces. Mark Weiss doesn't have the same concern.
"On a nightly basis, I was subjected to sharing a bed with him and getting molested," Weiss said.
Weiss was 13 at the time. He and the others understand that Mondrowitz probably can't be prosecuted for their alleged crimes because of the statute of limitations. But they still want justice for those named in the original sex abuse indictment.
"He just needs to be taken off the street ?whether he ends up in jail in Israel or ends up in jail here," Weiss said.
Government documents we obtained show that efforts to extradite Mondrowitz began immediately after he fled. But at that time a treaty with Israel did not recognize homosexual rape as an extraditable offense. The treaty changed in 1988 -- but after Charles Hynes became district attorney. His office informed the feds in 1993, it was no longer pursuing the case. The case was closed.
Michael Lesher, attorney: "His record on the case was first indifference and then actual abandonment."
Attorney Michael Lesher is now representing several of the orthodox men who believe Hynes has dropped the ball on Mondrowitz' extradition.
Lesher: "They could extradite him tomorrow, at least the effort could be made."
Lesher and orthodox sociologist Amy Neustein are now requesting that a special prosecutor be appointed by the state to investigate sex crimes in Brooklyn.
The rabbinic lobby has a stranglehold on Joe Hynes.
The orthodox men we spoke with claim their community is determined to keep sex abuse cloaked in secrecy.
Sarah Wallace: "Do you think there's more of a stigma in your community than elsewhere?"
Victim: "Absolutely ... "
Mark Weiss: "I think the community is tremendously in denial. I think somehow these people tend to be merciful to the perpetrator and harsh to the victim."
The DA's office issued a terse "No comment" about this story but in the past the office has said its hands are tied by the extradition treaty but, if Mondrowitz returned to the U.S. he would be prosecuted.
I reached Mondrowitz' wife by phone in Israel. She said the allegations are completely one-sided. His attorney has previously denied the charges.
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Brooklyn D.A. wants alleged molestor extradited
By Nancie L. Katz
New York Daily News - October 11, 2007
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes wants a rabbi who fled to Israel 23 years ago after allegedly molesting four boys, extradited back to New York.
Hynes' request to the U.S. Justice Department that Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz face justice has been forwarded to the Israeli Ministry of Justice. Mondrowitz, a onetime popular child psychologist in Brooklyn's Borough Park, was indicted in February 1985 on charges of sexually abusing four boys, months after he fled.
Former Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman tried for years to extradite Mondrowitz, but Hynes had resisted. Critics charged Hynes was afraid of offending the powerful Orthodox Jewish voting bloc and only changed his mind because of a change in the community's attitude toward pedophilia. His spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer, denied the allegation.
"That had no impact on our decision at all," he said, saying an amendment to the extradition treaty allowed Hynes to act.
Hynes' decision has brought some relief to the alleged victims, including a rabbi who told Hynes that Mondrowitz, a neighbor and father of his friends, had molested him at the age of 11 in the late 1970s.
Mondrowitz declined comment when reached by telephone in Israel.
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Abuse victims hope healing begins with rabbi's arrest
BY NANCIE L. KATZ
DAILY NEWS - Wednesday, October 17, 2007
For too long, an alleged Brooklyn pedophile rabbi's victims have waited for their silencing to end. Now, they hope his prosecution will push their closed community to out child molesters.
Twenty-three years after Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz fled to Jerusalem to evade charges of molesting four boys, Israel's ministry of justice now has an extradition request from Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, his spokesman said.
"It's a shame it took so long. People committed suicide over him," said a 44-year-old man who says the popular rabbi abused him and his friends in the 1970s.
"If they did this a lot earlier, there would have been a lot more people saved because other child molesters would get the message. This will send the message."
In the hush-hush Orthodox Jewish community, victims say Mondrowitz left a trail of destroyed lives during his tenure as a rabbi/psychologist and headmaster in Brooklyn during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Former District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman tried to get him extradited in the 1980s, but a U.S. Justice Department official said the extradition treaty with Israel made it hard - until changes last January - to forward the request to Jerusalem.
Hynes, who took office in 1989, had been slammed for failing to go after Mondrowitz. Critics charged he feared losing the powerful Orthodox Jewish vote. But his spokesman denied the allegations, saying Hynes moved swiftly once a treaty change allowed Israel to recognize the 1985 sodomy counts.
An Israeli Justice official declined comment, as did Mondrowitz, contacted at his Jerusalem home.
One alleged victim was only 11 when he described Mondrowitz, who headed his alternative Jewish boys' school, as befriending him, giving him money and taking him to movies and his mountain cabin.
Soon, he began taking friends, he said.
"He used to talk us all up. He did a lot of things to entice kids," he said. "I used to bring kids to his house. He'd grab kids in front of me, in his office.
"It affected me a long time," he said. "I felt I was taken."
The victim, not named in the indictment, said he believed hundreds of boys were fondled by Mondrowitz, and saw dozens himself.
A 39-year-old rabbi filed a complaint last year, accusing Mondrowitz of abusing him when he was 11. He charged that pedophiles are still free to ruin lives in the closed Orthodox community, where leaders routinely silence victims to avoid scandal.
"There are probably more kids harmed in this community than any other because everything is placed under the rug," he said. "They throw a kid out of school if he complains. "This will send a message: You can run away and hide and you can think it is forgotten, but eventually it will hunt you down and get you. That is very important. It is a deterrent we never had."
_________________________________________________________________________________
BY NANCIE L. KATZ
DAILY NEWS - Wednesday, October 17, 2007
For too long, an alleged Brooklyn pedophile rabbi's victims have waited for their silencing to end. Now, they hope his prosecution will push their closed community to out child molesters.
Twenty-three years after Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz fled to Jerusalem to evade charges of molesting four boys, Israel's ministry of justice now has an extradition request from Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, his spokesman said.
"It's a shame it took so long. People committed suicide over him," said a 44-year-old man who says the popular rabbi abused him and his friends in the 1970s.
"If they did this a lot earlier, there would have been a lot more people saved because other child molesters would get the message. This will send the message."
In the hush-hush Orthodox Jewish community, victims say Mondrowitz left a trail of destroyed lives during his tenure as a rabbi/psychologist and headmaster in Brooklyn during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Former District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman tried to get him extradited in the 1980s, but a U.S. Justice Department official said the extradition treaty with Israel made it hard - until changes last January - to forward the request to Jerusalem.
Hynes, who took office in 1989, had been slammed for failing to go after Mondrowitz. Critics charged he feared losing the powerful Orthodox Jewish vote. But his spokesman denied the allegations, saying Hynes moved swiftly once a treaty change allowed Israel to recognize the 1985 sodomy counts.
An Israeli Justice official declined comment, as did Mondrowitz, contacted at his Jerusalem home.
One alleged victim was only 11 when he described Mondrowitz, who headed his alternative Jewish boys' school, as befriending him, giving him money and taking him to movies and his mountain cabin.
Soon, he began taking friends, he said.
"He used to talk us all up. He did a lot of things to entice kids," he said. "I used to bring kids to his house. He'd grab kids in front of me, in his office.
"It affected me a long time," he said. "I felt I was taken."
The victim, not named in the indictment, said he believed hundreds of boys were fondled by Mondrowitz, and saw dozens himself.
A 39-year-old rabbi filed a complaint last year, accusing Mondrowitz of abusing him when he was 11. He charged that pedophiles are still free to ruin lives in the closed Orthodox community, where leaders routinely silence victims to avoid scandal.
"There are probably more kids harmed in this community than any other because everything is placed under the rug," he said. "They throw a kid out of school if he complains. "This will send a message: You can run away and hide and you can think it is forgotten, but eventually it will hunt you down and get you. That is very important. It is a deterrent we never had."
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Hynes Now Seeks Mondrowitz Extradition
by Staff Report
New York Jewish Week - October 18, 2007
A change in the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States has led to a request for custody of a Brooklyn rabbi accused of sexually abusing former students, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.
Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz has remained in Jerusalem for 23 years since leaving the country amid allegations that the former counselor and yeshiva principal molested four boys.
A spokesman for DA Charles J. Hynes on Wednesday said a request for the return for Rabbi Mondrowitz came in February, shortly after the State Department and Israel's Ministry of Justice agreed to broaden the spectrum of crimes under which extradition from Israel will be allowed.
"As soon as the treaty was changed allowing extradition on the charges he faces, we moved to
have him extradited," said the spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer.
The request was first reported last week in the New York Daily News.
The exact charges on which Rabbi Mondrowitz is suspected are contained in a sealed indictment, Schmetterer said.
Hynes has been under consistent pressure from victims' advocates who speculated that he was afraid of losing support among Orthodox voters if he put Rabbi Mondrowitz on trial. But Schmetterer said, "We have always said over the years that we never lost sight of the case, but the treaty didn't allow for extradition." He said Israel's Ministry of Justice was now "working hard" to fulfill the request.
An advocate for victims of abuse who has been closely monitoring the Mondrowitz case, Amy Neustein, said she felt "exhilarated" by the prospect of an extradition. "I hope this will be the beginning of healing for the Jewish community, and after 20 years of political agitation from advocates and victims, justice will finally prevail," she said.
When reached by a Daily News reporter in Jerusalem, Rabbi Mondrowitz had no comment.
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US wants extradition of prominent Ger hassid accused of sodomy
Jerusalem Post - October 23, 2007
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office has requested the extradition of Avrohom Mondrowitz, a resident of Jerusalem and a prominent member of the Ger Hassidic sect, on child molestation charges dating back over two decades involving four boys aged 11 to 16.
The extradition request was made in January, according to Brooklyn District Attorney's Office spokesman Jerry Schmetterer. "We know that the US Department of Justice and the State Department have begun the extradition process," said Schmetterer. "It is also our understanding that the Israeli Justice Ministry has been contacted as well."
The Justice Ministry declined to comment.
Mondrowitz, who was contacted by telephone by The Jerusalem Post, hung up as soon as the reporter identified himself.
However, a prominent member of the Ger community in Jerusalem defended Mondrowitz.
"There are people who are trying to disparage Mondrowitz's name," said the source.
"Mondrowitz is a very intelligent, talented man and so are all of his children. His father is highly respected in the community. I can't believe these stories are true.
The source said Mondrowitz was in the computer business.
Mondrowitz worked for a short period at the Jerusalem College of Technology as a fund-raiser and at the Jerusalem College of Engineering as a lecturer.
The Post has also learned that Dep.-Cmdr. Avi Aviv of the National Fraud Squad's Cyber Crimes Division is conducting an investigation against Mondrowitz.
Mondrowitz, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1947 and later moved with his family to Chicago, arrived in Brooklyn in the late 1970s and presented himself to Orthodox educational institutions as a rabbi and clinical psychologist.
He provided psychological treatment to children from the mixed Jewish-Italian Borough Park neighborhood where he lived. He also opened a yeshiva for children with behavioral problems.
Four children, all from Italian families and all neighbors of Mondrowitz, complained of sexual abuse perpetrated by Mondrowitz. Jewish victims also eventually testified against him, but only after the statute of limitations had expired.
In 1985, a New York State court charged Mondrowitz with eight counts of child abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child and five counts of sodomy in the first degree.
Mondrowitz and his family fled to Jerusalem after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
At the time of the indictment, sodomy of boys was not an extraditable crime, since it was not defined as rape under Israeli law. In 1988, the Knesset changed that law, apparently opening the way for Mondrowitz's extradition.
The Brooklyn DA's office said Mondrowitz could not be extradited until this year, when the Knesset approved a law removing the impediments to retroactively applying the 1988 law.
But Michael Lesher, an attorney representing six men who say they were molested by Mondrowitz in the early 1980s but who were not included in the original indictment, said the extradition was delayed due to officials, especially Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, dragging their feet.
Lesher claims that Hynes balked due to heavy pressure to drop the case from the Orthodox community in Brooklyn, which supported Mondrowitz despite the fact that Israel's Edah Haredit Rabbinic Court issued a ruling in 1988 in which unnamed "insidious acts" committed by Mondrowitz were mentioned, and warning him to stay away from children.
"Hynes was elected in 1989 with strong Orthodox support," Lesher said in an e-mailed message. "He appointed a virtually all-Orthodox Jewish Advisory Council after being elected, and he reversed the policy of his predecessor, Elizabeth Holtzman, and did not press for Mondrowitz's return to face trial.
In September 1993, Hynes instructed the federal government to close its file on Mondrowitz and said he would not pursue the case while Mondrowitz remained in Israel.
Lesher said he was "elated" to see the district attorney finally moving to extradite Mondrowitz. "All my clients hope that Mondrowitz will at last be brought to justice."
In response to Lesher's claims, Schmetterer said extradition was impossible until the Knesset acted this year.
But in past news reports on delays, Hynes's office was quoted as providing a different explanation. Sources were cited saying that despite the changes in Israeli law, the extradition request could not be made retroactively.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Jerusalem Post - October 23, 2007
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office has requested the extradition of Avrohom Mondrowitz, a resident of Jerusalem and a prominent member of the Ger Hassidic sect, on child molestation charges dating back over two decades involving four boys aged 11 to 16.
The extradition request was made in January, according to Brooklyn District Attorney's Office spokesman Jerry Schmetterer. "We know that the US Department of Justice and the State Department have begun the extradition process," said Schmetterer. "It is also our understanding that the Israeli Justice Ministry has been contacted as well."
The Justice Ministry declined to comment.
Mondrowitz, who was contacted by telephone by The Jerusalem Post, hung up as soon as the reporter identified himself.
However, a prominent member of the Ger community in Jerusalem defended Mondrowitz.
"There are people who are trying to disparage Mondrowitz's name," said the source.
"Mondrowitz is a very intelligent, talented man and so are all of his children. His father is highly respected in the community. I can't believe these stories are true.
The source said Mondrowitz was in the computer business.
Mondrowitz worked for a short period at the Jerusalem College of Technology as a fund-raiser and at the Jerusalem College of Engineering as a lecturer.
The Post has also learned that Dep.-Cmdr. Avi Aviv of the National Fraud Squad's Cyber Crimes Division is conducting an investigation against Mondrowitz.
Mondrowitz, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1947 and later moved with his family to Chicago, arrived in Brooklyn in the late 1970s and presented himself to Orthodox educational institutions as a rabbi and clinical psychologist.
He provided psychological treatment to children from the mixed Jewish-Italian Borough Park neighborhood where he lived. He also opened a yeshiva for children with behavioral problems.
Four children, all from Italian families and all neighbors of Mondrowitz, complained of sexual abuse perpetrated by Mondrowitz. Jewish victims also eventually testified against him, but only after the statute of limitations had expired.
In 1985, a New York State court charged Mondrowitz with eight counts of child abuse in the first degree, endangering the welfare of a child and five counts of sodomy in the first degree.
Mondrowitz and his family fled to Jerusalem after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
At the time of the indictment, sodomy of boys was not an extraditable crime, since it was not defined as rape under Israeli law. In 1988, the Knesset changed that law, apparently opening the way for Mondrowitz's extradition.
The Brooklyn DA's office said Mondrowitz could not be extradited until this year, when the Knesset approved a law removing the impediments to retroactively applying the 1988 law.
But Michael Lesher, an attorney representing six men who say they were molested by Mondrowitz in the early 1980s but who were not included in the original indictment, said the extradition was delayed due to officials, especially Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, dragging their feet.
Lesher claims that Hynes balked due to heavy pressure to drop the case from the Orthodox community in Brooklyn, which supported Mondrowitz despite the fact that Israel's Edah Haredit Rabbinic Court issued a ruling in 1988 in which unnamed "insidious acts" committed by Mondrowitz were mentioned, and warning him to stay away from children.
"Hynes was elected in 1989 with strong Orthodox support," Lesher said in an e-mailed message. "He appointed a virtually all-Orthodox Jewish Advisory Council after being elected, and he reversed the policy of his predecessor, Elizabeth Holtzman, and did not press for Mondrowitz's return to face trial.
In September 1993, Hynes instructed the federal government to close its file on Mondrowitz and said he would not pursue the case while Mondrowitz remained in Israel.
Lesher said he was "elated" to see the district attorney finally moving to extradite Mondrowitz. "All my clients hope that Mondrowitz will at last be brought to justice."
In response to Lesher's claims, Schmetterer said extradition was impossible until the Knesset acted this year.
But in past news reports on delays, Hynes's office was quoted as providing a different explanation. Sources were cited saying that despite the changes in Israeli law, the extradition request could not be made retroactively.
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U.S. asks Israel to extradite ultra-Orthodox Jew accused of child abuse
By Aviva Lori
Haaretz - November 13, 2007
(SEE HEBREW EDITION BELOW)
The U.S. Justice Department has asked Israel to facilitate the extradition of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man suspected of raping and sexually abusing dozens of boys.Avrohom Mondrowitz was investigated by the New York Police Department in the 1980s and was indicted for sex crimes against four boys in Brooklyn, N.Y., but fled to Israel before he could be arrested.
According to witness reports, 60-year-old Mondrowitz, a married father of seven, would pose as a psychologist specializing in the treatment of children that suffered sexual abuse.
The full story will appear in the weekend edition of Haaretz newspaper.
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ארה"ב ביקשה הסגרת חשוד בעשרות מקרי אונס והתעללות מינית
אברהם מונדרוביץ, חסיד גור, הציג עצמו כפסיכולוג
המתמחה בטיפול בנערים שעברו התעללות מינית, אך חשוד שתקף אותם בעצמו. הוא
חמק לישראל לאחר שהוגש נגדו כתב אישום
משרד המשפטים האמריקאי הגיש לישראל לפני כחודשיים בקשת הסגרה כנגד אברהם מונדרוביץ, חסיד גור שחשוד בביצוע מעשי אונס והתעללות מינית בעשרות נערים בארה"ב. נגד מונדרוביץ הוגש כתב אישום שכלל תלונות של ארבעה נערים תושבי שכונת מגוריו בברוקלין באמצע שנות ה-80. אולם הוא הצליח לחמוק לישראל לפני שמומשה פקודת המעצר שהוגשה נגדו.
מעדויות שמובאות במוסף "הארץ" שיתפרסם בסוף השבוע, עולה כי מונדרוביץ, כבן 60, נשוי ואב לשבעה, הציג את עצמו כבעל כמה תארים מאוניברסיטאות שונות ואף כפסיכולוג המתמחה בטיפול בנערים במצוקה שעברו התעללות מינית. אולם ההורים ששלחו את ילדיהם לטיפול אצלו לא ידעו כי הוא בעצמו פוגע בילדים.
מארק וייס, בן 40 משיקאגו, מספר כי לאחר שהתקשה להסתגל למסגרות חינוכיות שלחו אותו הוריו בגיל 14 לניו יורק לטיפול קצר-טווח אצל הפסיכולוג. מונדרוביץ אסף אותו משדה התעופה, לקח אותו למסעדה, אחר כך ללונה פארק ובסוף לדירה שלו ברחוב 60. לדברי וייס "המשפחה שלו היתה בקוטג' בהרי הקטסקיל ואני ישנתי איתו בבית. הוא שאל אותי איפה אני רוצה לישון, במיטה של הבן שלו או איתו, אני זוכר שהוא יצר איזו אווירה של פחד כלפי השינה בחדר של הבן שלו, אז אמרתי שאני רוצה לישון איתו. בלילה הוא פתאום נגע בי. מההתחלה ועד הסוף, כולל מעשה סדום. הייתי נאיווי, לא הבנתי מה זה בדיוק, חשבתי שזה חלק מהנחמדות, שככה הוא רוצה שאני ארגיש טוב".
וייס גם לא זוכר שיחות טיפוליות שערך עימו מונדרוביץ. "הכל היה תרמית אחת גדולה. בבוקר הוא היה למטה במרתף, מקבל פציינטים, וכשלא היו לו פציינטים הוא הסתובב איתי בכל מיני מקומות וכל לילה היה בא אלי למיטה". בנוגע ליחס הרבנים אל המקרה של מונדרוביץ אמר וייס: "הם שיתקו דור שלם. כשאחד מהם הורס אנשים אחרים, הם לא עושים כלום. הדברים האלה הרבה יותר חשובים משמיטה ומתולעים בחסה".
בישראל מתגורר מונדרוביץ בירושלים. במשך השנים עבד במוסדות חינוך שונים, אולם כיום, ככל הידוע, הוא אינו מועסק. לפי החשד הוא מתפרנס מהנפקת תארים אקדמיים לכל דורש. בעיקר לסטודנטים ממדינות העולם השלישי. ברשותו סמלים ולוגואים של אוניברסיטאות שונות בעולם, חותמות, דוגמאות חתימה וטופסי הרשמה. משטרת ישראל שנחשפה לאתרים בהם גולש מונדרוביץ באינטרנט זימנה אותו לפני כחודש לחקירה שממנה הוא שוחרר לביתו בתנאים מגבילים.
אברהם מונדרוביץ סירב להגיב לכתבה. הוא טרק את הטלפון עוד לפני ששמע את הטענות נגדו.
הכתבה המלאה תתפרסם בסוף השבוע במוסף הארץ.
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UPDATED: U.S. asks Israel to extradite ultra-Orthodox Jew accused of child abuse
By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz - November 14, 2007
The U.S. Justice Department has asked Israel to facilitate the extradition of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man suspected of raping and sexually abusing dozens of boys.
Avrohom Mondrowitz was investigated by the New York Police Department in the 1980s and was indicted for sex crimes against four boys in Brooklyn, N.Y., but fled to Israel before he could be arrested.
According to witness reports, 60-year-old Mondrowitz, a married father of seven, would pose as a psychologist specializing in the treatment of children that suffered sexual abuse.
U.S. asks Israel to extradite Hassidic Jew wanted for molesting minors extradite
One of Mondrowitz's victims, 40-year-old Chicago resident Mark Weiss, who, as a child, was sent by his parents to New York for therapy with Mondrowitz after he had dropped out of several educational frameworks, recounted his ordeal. "[Mondrowitz's] family was at a cottage in the Catskills and I was sleeping at his house. at night he suddenly touched me. I was naive. I thought he was being nice, that he was trying to make me feel better," said Weiss. "It was all a big Fraud," he concluded.
Regarding the way the affair was handled by rabbis within the community, Weiss said: "[The rabbis] paralyzed an entire generation. When one of them destroys another person, they do nothing."
Mondrowitz currently resides in Jerusalem. Over the years he has worked in several educational institutions, but he is now unemployed, and allegedly supports himself by selling forged academic degrees.
A month ago, police summoned him for an interrogation over Web sites that he had visited, and then released him on conditions.
Mondrowitz refused to answer questions regarding the allegations against him.
The full story will appear in the weekend edition of Haaretz newspaper.
By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz - November 14, 2007
The U.S. Justice Department has asked Israel to facilitate the extradition of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man suspected of raping and sexually abusing dozens of boys.
Avrohom Mondrowitz was investigated by the New York Police Department in the 1980s and was indicted for sex crimes against four boys in Brooklyn, N.Y., but fled to Israel before he could be arrested.
According to witness reports, 60-year-old Mondrowitz, a married father of seven, would pose as a psychologist specializing in the treatment of children that suffered sexual abuse.
U.S. asks Israel to extradite Hassidic Jew wanted for molesting minors extradite
One of Mondrowitz's victims, 40-year-old Chicago resident Mark Weiss, who, as a child, was sent by his parents to New York for therapy with Mondrowitz after he had dropped out of several educational frameworks, recounted his ordeal. "[Mondrowitz's] family was at a cottage in the Catskills and I was sleeping at his house. at night he suddenly touched me. I was naive. I thought he was being nice, that he was trying to make me feel better," said Weiss. "It was all a big Fraud," he concluded.
Regarding the way the affair was handled by rabbis within the community, Weiss said: "[The rabbis] paralyzed an entire generation. When one of them destroys another person, they do nothing."
Mondrowitz currently resides in Jerusalem. Over the years he has worked in several educational institutions, but he is now unemployed, and allegedly supports himself by selling forged academic degrees.
A month ago, police summoned him for an interrogation over Web sites that he had visited, and then released him on conditions.
Mondrowitz refused to answer questions regarding the allegations against him.
The full story will appear in the weekend edition of Haaretz newspaper.
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Mondrowitz arrested in Israel
Accused pedophile Avraham Mondrowitz was arrested in Israel.
JTA - November 14, 2007
Mondrowitz, a fervently Orthodox hasid who fled to Israel to escape arrest on charges that he molested underage boys, was apprehended Friday by Israeli authorities. Mondrowitz's extradition had been requested earlier this year by the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, according to a spokesperson.
The arrest came just hours before a scheduled press conference in New York meant to intensify public pressure for action on the case. Michael Lesher, an attorney who represents six of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, told reporters he was grateful for the arrest, but that celebrations were premature.
"There is too much left to do," Lesher said.
Mondrowitz was indicted in Brooklyn in the 1980s on several counts of abusing underage boys, including acts forced sodomy. According to Lesher, who said he confirmed the arrest with a spokesperson for Israel's Ministry of Justice, Mondrowitz is scheduled to have a hearing Sunday afternoon.
Last Sunday, an Israeli court ruled that another accused pedophile who fled to Israel, Stefan Colmer, could be extradited to the United States.
Lesher was joined at the press conference by several activists who deal with the subject of sex abuse in the Orthodox community. They said that, while abuse may not be more prevalent among religious Jews, the stigma against reporting cases to the authorities has only recently begun to lift.
Accused pedophile Avraham Mondrowitz was arrested in Israel.
JTA - November 14, 2007
Mondrowitz, a fervently Orthodox hasid who fled to Israel to escape arrest on charges that he molested underage boys, was apprehended Friday by Israeli authorities. Mondrowitz's extradition had been requested earlier this year by the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, according to a spokesperson.
The arrest came just hours before a scheduled press conference in New York meant to intensify public pressure for action on the case. Michael Lesher, an attorney who represents six of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, told reporters he was grateful for the arrest, but that celebrations were premature.
"There is too much left to do," Lesher said.
Mondrowitz was indicted in Brooklyn in the 1980s on several counts of abusing underage boys, including acts forced sodomy. According to Lesher, who said he confirmed the arrest with a spokesperson for Israel's Ministry of Justice, Mondrowitz is scheduled to have a hearing Sunday afternoon.
Last Sunday, an Israeli court ruled that another accused pedophile who fled to Israel, Stefan Colmer, could be extradited to the United States.
Lesher was joined at the press conference by several activists who deal with the subject of sex abuse in the Orthodox community. They said that, while abuse may not be more prevalent among religious Jews, the stigma against reporting cases to the authorities has only recently begun to lift.
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In the basement, behind a closed door
By Aviva Lori
By Aviva Lori
Haaretz - November 15, 2007
A. is not the only one to have harbored thoughts of cold-blooded murder for more than 20 years. There are several hundred others, he says: men now in their thirties and forties who two or three decades earlier were students at yeshivas in Brooklyn. They say they were victims of Avrohom Mondrowitz, who lives in Jerusalem's colorful Nahlaot neighborhood.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect who styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist, was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s. He had a yeshiva and a private clinic in which he treated mostly children in distress. But the Brooklyn police suspect that instead of educating and helping, he sexually abused his pupils, his patients, children in the neighborhood and friends of his own children. The venues were varied: his office, his home, the yeshiva, his car, the family's summer cottage in the Catskills, amusement parks and public parks. In short, everywhere. Day and night. The respected rabbis of the community modestly averted their gaze. They knew, they saw, they were silent.
A., now about 40, was born and raised in an Orthodox family in Brooklyn. At the age of seven he was sexually assaulted in the street by an unknown assailant. "That already marked me," he relates, "and it was like a prelude to what came after." What came after was fomented by two respected figures. The first was a revered teacher in Brooklyn. The second respected figure was Mondrowitz. He kept the horror to himself and turned inward. "I became a troublemaker," he says. "I was thrown out of one yeshiva and then out of another. I became a nomad. I lost my self-esteem and didn't care about anything. The hardest part was when I told the rabbis in the yeshiva what the teacher did to me. They just ignored me and did nothing."
When A. was 15, the rabbis persuaded his parents, who did not know how to deal with their wayward son, to send him to the man who presented himself as a psychologist, a certain Avrohom Mondrowitz, who lived on 60th Street in Brooklyn's Borough Park section. "I was forced to see him three or four times a week, because I was a very special case," A. says. "From the very first, something about him bothered me. I didn't like the way he looked at me. After the first time, I came home and told my mother than I didn't want to go to him anymore, but he came to our place and spoke to my parents, and they persuaded me to go back."
A. went to Mondrowitz for two months. But the treatment immediately assumed a peculiar form. "It didn't take more than two visits, and he stopped taking an interest in my problems and started to mess with me."
A. recalls that at first he was very moved and opened up to Mondrowitz, telling him what the teacher had done to him, but instead of being supportive, Mondrowitz began to touch him. "I was in a state of shock. I didn't know what to do. The place you are meant to trust and where you go for help, attacks you. I froze and bottled up completely. I was drained of feelings. I called him 'Herr Doktor,' like Mengele, who also did experiments on Jewish children."
Did you understand what was going on?
"I understood immediately. It was like a game. It's hard to explain - only someone who has gone through an experience like that can understand. The assailant knows that you are easy prey, that he can play with your feelings because you are at your weakest point. He will not mess with the tough kids, only with the weak and the miserable. And that's how it went on, every time I went to him. He didn't even try to pretend that he was treating me. He got down to business right away. He took me to movies, for walks, and he kept touching me all the time."
Why didn't you run away?
"I have asked myself that question hundreds of times. I feel suffocated when I think about it. It drives me crazy. I didn't run because I thought there was something wrong with me. That I was a whore. I believed that that was my fate. That that is what I deserved - the fact is that it happened more than once. Deep inside I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't control it. I tried to fight with my parents, told them I didn't want to go to him, but they made me, so the yeshiva would agree to take me back - that was the rabbis' condition, for him to say I was cured. And in fact, two months later the yeshiva took me back and I stopped going to him. I told my parents I wasn't going there anymore and that was the end of it."
But two weeks later, he was expelled from the yeshiva again. That summer his parents sent him to a camp, but there he got into trouble again. Desperate, his parents called Mondrowitz and asked him to help. "I was an angry, rebellious adolescent," A. says. "I was angry at the religion, at the system, at the establishment and at everyone who represented the establishment. I hated the whole world and I fought everyone. Mondrowitz came to the camp, and when I saw him from a distance, I ran. My father didn't understand what was going on. 'He just wants to help you,' he said, and I remember telling him, 'He is a faggot, get him away from me.'"
In his senior year, A. fell apart completely. He did not attend school and lived in the streets. Most of the time, he saw the world through a haze of alcohol and drugs. His parents could not communicate with him. And then he was thrown a lifebelt: "Someone took me in, looked after me and saved my life. I told him everything, and he believed me. He asked what he could do to lessen my pain. I told him, 'That won't happen until I drive the last nail into the coffin of all the people who hurt me. I want justice to be done.'"
A. says he had clear, graphic, highly detailed dreams about killing them. The dreams recurred every night and turned into an obsession. "They absolutely took my life from me."
You wanted revenge?
"It's not a matter of revenge. Those people are sick, and there is only one way to deal with them - to eradicate them, like stray dogs. Otherwise they will go on doing what they did. They took from me something that will never be returned, and I can never forget, and maybe should not forget. People like me have to spread the word that these monsters are still walking the streets. I have been given the task of warning people about them."
With the help of the young man who befriended him, A. went to the police and filed a complaint against Mondrowitz. "I didn't know then that there were also other children he had hurt. I thought it was just me. Today I know at least 20 people who were his victims, but I know there were hundreds."
It was only then that A. told his parents about what Mondrowitz had done to him. "They felt terribly sorry and guilty for having sent me to him. But a few days later I learned that he had fled to Israel and was living the comfortable life of a respected Jew in Jerusalem." A. is now married and has children of his own. He leads a religious life, though when he was in the lower depths, wandering the streets, he removed his yarmulke and spurned religion. Even though his wife and children know about the sexual abuse he endured, he insists on remaining anonymous. He still has doubts, he says: he feels afraid and threatened by the religious society in which he grew up and was educated. He is not the only one who feels persecuted. Most of Mondrowitz's alleged victims live a secret life, fearing exposure.
A community psychologist
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, was probably born in Poland and settled in Israel with his family after World War II. He grew up in Tel Aviv, but in the 1950s the family immigrated to Chicago. He attended the Telshe Yeshiva, in Wickliffe, Ohio, run by the Lithuanian branch of Orthodox Jewry. In the 1970s, he came to Brooklyn, saying he held a master's degree in the sciences, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia, and another Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Florida, in addition to being an ordained rabbi. The Jews of Brooklyn were impressed, and Mondrowitz began to acquire social status. He wrote articles on education for the Haredi press, had a radio program on which he gave listeners advice on how to treat children, established a yeshiva for children in distress and was active in Ohel, a large New York organization for orphans and children from broken homes. Finally, he hung a "psychologist" sign on his door and started to receive patients.
"He made a name for himself and was very respected in the community," says a Brooklyn Hasid. "Children were referred to him, hard cases from Ohel, and he treated them. Rabbis also referred children to him for treatment. His expertise was treating children who had been sexually molested."
Children who visited his office, which was located in the basement of his home, remember him boasting about the "bragging wall," on which hung his diplomas and certificates, all finely framed, which attested to his qualifications as a therapist. But according to Patricia Kehoe, a retired New York Police Department detective, "his diplomas turned out to be fakes, including his rabbinical ordination."
The police suspect that in that office, behind a closed door and drawn curtains, he sexually abused children, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
I understood what happened
Mark Weiss, 40, from Chicago, grew up in a strictly Orthodox family, but in adolescence began to feel constricted by the rigid religious lifestyle. When he was 12, the family spent a sabbatical in Israel, and at 13 he was sent to a less strict yeshiva in San Francisco. He did not do well in his studies and felt out of place. A year later, the yeshiva informed him that he would not be able to continue his studies there, and his worried parents sent him to New York for instant counseling by a renowned psychologist.
"I was 14, and my parents sent me by plane," he said in a telephone interview. "They knew Mondrowitz's parents from Chicago - sometimes I went with my father to his father's synagogue. Mondrowitz himself attended the yeshiva in which his father was a rabbi. He was well-known. I was sent to him for a week, a week and a half, to get my head straight."
Mondrowitz went out of his way to make Weiss' stay a pleasant one. He picked him up at the airport, took him out to eat, then to an amusement park and finally to his place on 60th Street. "His family was away in a cottage in the Catskills and I slept with him in the house. At first it was terrific fun. He took me to all kinds of places and I took in every new thing: it was a perfect trap. At night he asked me where I wanted to sleep, in his son's bed or with him. I remember that he created this queasy atmosphere about his son's bedroom, so I said I wanted to sleep with him. During the night he suddenly touched me. From start to finish, including sodomy. I was naive, I didn't understand what was happening, I thought it was part of his niceness, that this is how he wanted to make me feel good."
What happened in the counseling sessions?
"Almost nothing. It was all one big fraud. In the morning, he was downstairs in the basement, receiving patients, and when he didn't have patients he went with me to all kinds of places, and at night he would come on to me, and on the weekend we drove up to the family's cottage."
When he was 16, Weiss was sent to a boarding school in Kiryat Tivon, near Haifa, where he spent two years, before returning to Chicago. He repressed the Mondrowitz experience successfully. He told no one, and it was as though it had never happened. But one day, during the Sukkot festival, he saw Mondrowitz in the synagogue. He was about to go over to him, when he suddenly understood what had happened to him a few years earlier.
"I froze, turned around and ran home," he relates. "On the way I started to cry, and my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her, but she found it hard to accept. Then my father came home and my mother told him, and he couldn't believe it, either. He tried to find out if maybe I was mistaken. Afterward I went to a friend and told him, but he couldn't believe it, and then I started to ask myself if maybe I was wrong. But a week later I got a call from a rabbi who asked me to see him at his home. I entered his office and he asked me, 'Would you send your children to Mondrowitz?' It was like a bomb went off in my head. I was in a state of shock. It took me a few minutes to reply, 'No, I wouldn't.' He asked why, and I told him, but again, nothing happened."
Weiss, who is married and has three children, lives in New Jersey, where he installs home movie systems. In 2001 he saw an ad in a religious paper about a conference of rabbis in New York on the subject of sexual molestation. "I went there," he says, "but it was disgraceful. I realized within a few minutes that they had no idea about what really goes on. They think that with them it's not like with the goyim or secular people, and they think they know how to help children. The truth is that they don't have a clue, because they sweep everything under the rug. It's all because of the matchmaking, because if it ever gets out what these people went through, no one wants them."
Are you angry at the rabbis?
"They silenced a whole generation. When one of them destroys other people, they do nothing. These are far more important matters than the shmita year [the land lying fallow every seven years] or worms in lettuce."
A public beating
G., 44, from New York, married with children, a rabbi's son, knew Mondrowitz as the head of a yeshiva he attended for five years, from the age of 11. "He molested me for many years," G. says. "He collected vulnerable children from broken homes who didn't get along with their parents, and abused them. He took me to the mountains, where he had a cottage. He would bring rifles and play with us, we would have contests shooting air guns, and he would win so that he could later do what he wanted with us as his prize. There was a dirty film playing in Manhattan at the time, called 'Caligula,' and he took me to see it. I was 14, and during the movie he pawed me."
Did you know that was bad?
"I'm not sure I knew. He was an adult, the head of a yeshiva. He gave me a lot of money and bought me things. After I understood, I came to the school one day and went up to each kid and told them to keep their distance from him. Then he entered the classroom and in front of everyone he pounded me really hard with both hands, on my face and back. That was already the end of high school; I was 18 at the time. And the whole time he kept telling me that I was weird and would never marry."
Did you tell your parents?
"Never. I was afraid he would beat me."
How do you live with a story like this?
"It's very hard. I now have terrible guilt feelings that maybe I did something bad and deserved everything that happened to me. I get very aggressive toward people when they seem to be approaching my children. I overprotect them and I have become very suspicious. All these years I repressed everything, and only recently did I begin professional therapy."
245 years in prison
At the beginning of the 1980s, when Mondrowitz was at the height of his glory, married and the father of seven children, rumors started to spread in the Orthodox community about the type of treatment he was giving, and his yeshiva closed down. On November 21, 1984, Detective Patricia Kehoe received an anonymous phone call about Mondrowitz's many victims.
"I will never forget it, because it was my birthday," Kehoe says in a phone conversation. "I was working in the sex crimes unit. It was a horrific conversation, but even more horrific were the stories of the victims we found that night. My partner and I went there immediately, and on his block we met children, but not Jews. His street was mixed - Jews and Italians lived there. It turned out that he was the friend of all of them, and all the parents thought he was this great guy. They told us that he took the children for weekends and bought them bikes. That shook me, and I asked the parents to let me talk with the children alone.
"The first boy I talked to broke down and said straight off what happened, and so did all the other children on the block. That night we found five victims. From them we received the names of other children and went on investigating. Then we received another anonymous call from someone who said he was a rabbi, and he told me about Jewish children he had molested. I went to the yeshiva to question more children, but they wouldn't let me in."
Kehoe's investigation eventually yielded four complaints by children of Italian origin aged 11 to 16, which led to an indictment of 13 counts: five counts of sodomy in the first degree and eight of sexual abuse in the first degree. The maximum punishment for these offenses in New York State is 25 years for each count of sodomy and 15 years for each count of sexual abuse, a total of 245 years. Two weeks later, the District Attorney's office issued a warrant for his arrest. When Kehoe and her partner, Detective Sal Catalfulmo, arrived at Mondrowitz's home with the warrant, they found it empty.
"We got the warrant from the judge in the middle of the night, but when we got there he was already gone," Kehoe says. "In his study we found lists with the names of hundreds of children and a great deal of pedophilic material. It then turned out that his wife and children hid with relatives and he went to his parents in Chicago, from there apparently to Canada and then to Israel. If you ask me, the whole thing worked too slowly. The DA's office delayed and he was able to escape."
Was there nothing you could do to speed up the process?
"I was only a policewoman, not a politician like the DA. If it had been up to me, I would have issued an arrest warrant immediately after the children complained. I am very happy that these people have now decided to talk, because at the time, when we tried to reach them to question them, we did not get cooperation, but now, when they are parents themselves, they understand how important it is. That man should have been in prison for the past 23 years. It's very frustrating, especially after I heard all the stories about him from the children."
Kehoe learned that Mondrowitz continued to teach and was around children in Israel. "That is awful. Everyone has to be warned about him. I only hope that God will give me a point in my favor after all the efforts I made, even though, at the end of the day, I didn't succeed."
Fake degrees
Avrohom Mondrowitz doesn't leave his home much these days. The last place that employed him, the Jerusalem College of Engineering, has dispensed with his services. "He taught here until the end of last year," says the college spokesman, Daniel Berman.
Why is he no longer working there?
"Because of what you know. What you heard, we also heard."
Searching for a job, Mondrowitz offered himself to the Herzliya Municipality as director of the education, welfare, culture, youth and sports department. When that didn't pan out, he tried for a less prestigious position, as director of a home for the aged, also in Herzliya. He claimed to have considerable experience in treating the elderly.
Mondrowitz's CV is flexible, changing with the circumstances. With every job application he attaches a CV to fit the requirements, or as he himself put it on one occasion, he possesses "a rare talent for flexibility and adaptation."
So rapid is his adaptability that it's hard to follow. According to one resume, he obtained a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia University in 1977, but elsewhere he wrote that in that year he completed a master's degree in educational administration at Long Island University and proceeded immediately to an MBA at Harvard. According to this version, he did not obtain his Ph.D. in psychology until 1984, though still at Columbia. But in yet another place he states that the 1984 degree is in developmental, not clinical, psychology, and is from Columbia University in Florida. And that is not the end. According to another CV, his doctoral degree in clinical psychology is actually from Heed University in Florida.
As far as the Israel Police know, Mondrowitz is currently devoting most of his energy, in the many leisure hours at his disposal, to the Internet. There he gratifies his deviant inclinations by watching clips of sadistic activity and pedophilic material. In his remaining time he makes a living by issuing bogus academic degrees to all comers, particularly to students from the Third World. He has emblems and logos from various universities, as well as seals, examples of signatures and registration forms. He refers most of the students to Thornhill University, in London, which grants degrees by correspondence and has a branch in Brooklyn. The letters that are sent out are signed by a Dr. George Coleman, who probably does not exist. A student who sought a Ph.D. in nuclear physics received a reply from Dr. Coleman to the effect that he was overdoing it, and that on the basis of his academic achievements the most that could be done for him was a degree in a less prestigious field such as education or psychology. In return for issuing a doctoral degree in theology and evangelism, for example, Dr. Coleman gets $2,000.
The Israel Police are taking an interest in Mondrowitz's various Internet occupations, and a month ago, on October 18, he was called in for questioning and released under restrictive conditions, says attorney Adian Daniels, from the law firm of Yigal Arnon, who is in contact with the police. "I am doing this pro bono, because I believe it is in the public interest," he says.
Avi Aviv, head of the computer crimes unit in the Israel Police, confirmed that Mondrowitz had been questioned, but declined to provide further details.
Extraditable
The indictment against Mondrowitz was drawn up in February 1985, and a court order was sent to his empty home in Brooklyn. However, it was not until September of that year that the Brooklyn District Attorney, Elizabeth Holtzman, sought his extradition from Israel. But that was impossible at the time. To begin with, it was not until 1988 that sodomy was recognized in Israel as full-fledged rape, including the sodomizing of males. In addition, at that time the extradition treaty with the United States included rape of a woman, but not sodomy against the will of a male.
"We were ready then to stretch a point and construe sodomy as an extraditable offense, on condition the Americans would also change it in their treaty, but they declined, so we decided not to extradite Mondrowitz," says attorney Irit Kahan, who headed the Justice Ministry's international department. "Recently the extradition treaty with the United States was changed, and now extradition is possible for any offense for which the punishment is more than one year in prison."
Despite this development, the Americans still did not rush to request Mondrowitz's extradition. The victims accuse the present Brooklyn DA, Charles Hynes. In the opinion of attorney Michael Lesher, who represents six of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, "This is an elected position. The Haredi community in Brooklyn has a great deal of electoral clout. Hynes was elected in 1989 with the support of the Orthodox, and no one wants to commit suicide because of some criminal who is sitting quietly in Israel."
In the past year, the community in Brooklyn has begun to seethe. The children of that period, those who see themselves as Mondrowitz's victims, organized and, through Lesher, put pressure on the DA's office to issue a new request for Mondrowitz's extradition. They all declared that if it proves necessary, they will testify in court. As a result, in February of this year the Brooklyn DA's office transferred all the material to the U.S. Justice Department.
"On September 6, the Justice Department issued an official extradition request to the State of Israel," a spokeswoman for the Justice Department said in response. "The statute of limitations does not apply here," Lesher says. "In the case of sodomy, you only have to be charged within five years of the perpetration of the offense, and he was charged but was not brought to court because he fled. There is also a time limitation from the time you are indicted until you are tried, but if the accused leaves his area of jurisdiction, that regulation is suspended. So there is no problem in extraditing Mondrowitz and bringing him to trial."
What stage have the extradition proceedings reached? The Justice Ministry says that the State Prosecutor's Office does not comment on extradition requests, "whether they have been filed or not."
Like poison
Dr. Amy Neustein, a sociologist from Brooklyn, has devoted the past 25 years to getting Mondrowitz arrested. She and other Orthodox Jews established a group with the goal of locating Mondrowitz and bringing him to justice. She also set up a research center in New York called Help Us Regain the Children (HURT), within the framework of which she is investigating the phenomenon of pedophilia within the closed Jewish society. The author of two books, she works with victims of sexual assault to help them cope.
"My aspiration to see justice done and get Mondrowitz tried became an obsession, because of all the molesters, he is the worst, according to the charges. He abused children in the light of day, perpetrated these crimes in front of his colleagues. I was told this by people who witnessed it in the yeshiva he worked in. Everyone knew, and they all covered up for him. As a sociologist I ask, if this is what happens when everything is in the open, what happens when things are less open? It is perfectly clear that Mondrowitz is not alone. He is a microcosm of the Orthodox society, in which pedophilia is rampant, in which the use of pornography is thriving and known to everyone - but it is all hidden under the rug. In the 1980s, everyone was afraid that if he started to talk he would take down others with him."
Neustein and others in Brooklyn tell about three cases of young people committing suicide and one case, last year, of suicide by an adult. "All three went to Mondrowitz for treatment and afterward became deeply depressed, and the families believe that this was the reason for the suicides."
A. says that he can fully understand a boy who would want to commit suicide after undergoing abuse by Mondrowitz. "It is very hard to live with so much pain and guilt. I also have no doubt that some of these victims will do the same things to others. I am certain that it works like poison that was injected into you as a child and then you pass it on."
Mark Weiss has never considered suicide, but he too can understand those who contemplate the act. "I am still alive, and that is not to be taken for granted. There are some who killed themselves, and others who are wandering around like crazy people."
Reached by telephone, Avrohom Mondrowitz refused to comment. He hung up even before he heard the allegations against him.
A. is not the only one to have harbored thoughts of cold-blooded murder for more than 20 years. There are several hundred others, he says: men now in their thirties and forties who two or three decades earlier were students at yeshivas in Brooklyn. They say they were victims of Avrohom Mondrowitz, who lives in Jerusalem's colorful Nahlaot neighborhood.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect who styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist, was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s. He had a yeshiva and a private clinic in which he treated mostly children in distress. But the Brooklyn police suspect that instead of educating and helping, he sexually abused his pupils, his patients, children in the neighborhood and friends of his own children. The venues were varied: his office, his home, the yeshiva, his car, the family's summer cottage in the Catskills, amusement parks and public parks. In short, everywhere. Day and night. The respected rabbis of the community modestly averted their gaze. They knew, they saw, they were silent.
A., now about 40, was born and raised in an Orthodox family in Brooklyn. At the age of seven he was sexually assaulted in the street by an unknown assailant. "That already marked me," he relates, "and it was like a prelude to what came after." What came after was fomented by two respected figures. The first was a revered teacher in Brooklyn. The second respected figure was Mondrowitz. He kept the horror to himself and turned inward. "I became a troublemaker," he says. "I was thrown out of one yeshiva and then out of another. I became a nomad. I lost my self-esteem and didn't care about anything. The hardest part was when I told the rabbis in the yeshiva what the teacher did to me. They just ignored me and did nothing."
When A. was 15, the rabbis persuaded his parents, who did not know how to deal with their wayward son, to send him to the man who presented himself as a psychologist, a certain Avrohom Mondrowitz, who lived on 60th Street in Brooklyn's Borough Park section. "I was forced to see him three or four times a week, because I was a very special case," A. says. "From the very first, something about him bothered me. I didn't like the way he looked at me. After the first time, I came home and told my mother than I didn't want to go to him anymore, but he came to our place and spoke to my parents, and they persuaded me to go back."
A. went to Mondrowitz for two months. But the treatment immediately assumed a peculiar form. "It didn't take more than two visits, and he stopped taking an interest in my problems and started to mess with me."
A. recalls that at first he was very moved and opened up to Mondrowitz, telling him what the teacher had done to him, but instead of being supportive, Mondrowitz began to touch him. "I was in a state of shock. I didn't know what to do. The place you are meant to trust and where you go for help, attacks you. I froze and bottled up completely. I was drained of feelings. I called him 'Herr Doktor,' like Mengele, who also did experiments on Jewish children."
Did you understand what was going on?
"I understood immediately. It was like a game. It's hard to explain - only someone who has gone through an experience like that can understand. The assailant knows that you are easy prey, that he can play with your feelings because you are at your weakest point. He will not mess with the tough kids, only with the weak and the miserable. And that's how it went on, every time I went to him. He didn't even try to pretend that he was treating me. He got down to business right away. He took me to movies, for walks, and he kept touching me all the time."
Why didn't you run away?
"I have asked myself that question hundreds of times. I feel suffocated when I think about it. It drives me crazy. I didn't run because I thought there was something wrong with me. That I was a whore. I believed that that was my fate. That that is what I deserved - the fact is that it happened more than once. Deep inside I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't control it. I tried to fight with my parents, told them I didn't want to go to him, but they made me, so the yeshiva would agree to take me back - that was the rabbis' condition, for him to say I was cured. And in fact, two months later the yeshiva took me back and I stopped going to him. I told my parents I wasn't going there anymore and that was the end of it."
But two weeks later, he was expelled from the yeshiva again. That summer his parents sent him to a camp, but there he got into trouble again. Desperate, his parents called Mondrowitz and asked him to help. "I was an angry, rebellious adolescent," A. says. "I was angry at the religion, at the system, at the establishment and at everyone who represented the establishment. I hated the whole world and I fought everyone. Mondrowitz came to the camp, and when I saw him from a distance, I ran. My father didn't understand what was going on. 'He just wants to help you,' he said, and I remember telling him, 'He is a faggot, get him away from me.'"
In his senior year, A. fell apart completely. He did not attend school and lived in the streets. Most of the time, he saw the world through a haze of alcohol and drugs. His parents could not communicate with him. And then he was thrown a lifebelt: "Someone took me in, looked after me and saved my life. I told him everything, and he believed me. He asked what he could do to lessen my pain. I told him, 'That won't happen until I drive the last nail into the coffin of all the people who hurt me. I want justice to be done.'"
A. says he had clear, graphic, highly detailed dreams about killing them. The dreams recurred every night and turned into an obsession. "They absolutely took my life from me."
You wanted revenge?
"It's not a matter of revenge. Those people are sick, and there is only one way to deal with them - to eradicate them, like stray dogs. Otherwise they will go on doing what they did. They took from me something that will never be returned, and I can never forget, and maybe should not forget. People like me have to spread the word that these monsters are still walking the streets. I have been given the task of warning people about them."
With the help of the young man who befriended him, A. went to the police and filed a complaint against Mondrowitz. "I didn't know then that there were also other children he had hurt. I thought it was just me. Today I know at least 20 people who were his victims, but I know there were hundreds."
It was only then that A. told his parents about what Mondrowitz had done to him. "They felt terribly sorry and guilty for having sent me to him. But a few days later I learned that he had fled to Israel and was living the comfortable life of a respected Jew in Jerusalem." A. is now married and has children of his own. He leads a religious life, though when he was in the lower depths, wandering the streets, he removed his yarmulke and spurned religion. Even though his wife and children know about the sexual abuse he endured, he insists on remaining anonymous. He still has doubts, he says: he feels afraid and threatened by the religious society in which he grew up and was educated. He is not the only one who feels persecuted. Most of Mondrowitz's alleged victims live a secret life, fearing exposure.
A community psychologist
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, was probably born in Poland and settled in Israel with his family after World War II. He grew up in Tel Aviv, but in the 1950s the family immigrated to Chicago. He attended the Telshe Yeshiva, in Wickliffe, Ohio, run by the Lithuanian branch of Orthodox Jewry. In the 1970s, he came to Brooklyn, saying he held a master's degree in the sciences, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia, and another Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Florida, in addition to being an ordained rabbi. The Jews of Brooklyn were impressed, and Mondrowitz began to acquire social status. He wrote articles on education for the Haredi press, had a radio program on which he gave listeners advice on how to treat children, established a yeshiva for children in distress and was active in Ohel, a large New York organization for orphans and children from broken homes. Finally, he hung a "psychologist" sign on his door and started to receive patients.
"He made a name for himself and was very respected in the community," says a Brooklyn Hasid. "Children were referred to him, hard cases from Ohel, and he treated them. Rabbis also referred children to him for treatment. His expertise was treating children who had been sexually molested."
Children who visited his office, which was located in the basement of his home, remember him boasting about the "bragging wall," on which hung his diplomas and certificates, all finely framed, which attested to his qualifications as a therapist. But according to Patricia Kehoe, a retired New York Police Department detective, "his diplomas turned out to be fakes, including his rabbinical ordination."
The police suspect that in that office, behind a closed door and drawn curtains, he sexually abused children, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
I understood what happened
Mark Weiss, 40, from Chicago, grew up in a strictly Orthodox family, but in adolescence began to feel constricted by the rigid religious lifestyle. When he was 12, the family spent a sabbatical in Israel, and at 13 he was sent to a less strict yeshiva in San Francisco. He did not do well in his studies and felt out of place. A year later, the yeshiva informed him that he would not be able to continue his studies there, and his worried parents sent him to New York for instant counseling by a renowned psychologist.
"I was 14, and my parents sent me by plane," he said in a telephone interview. "They knew Mondrowitz's parents from Chicago - sometimes I went with my father to his father's synagogue. Mondrowitz himself attended the yeshiva in which his father was a rabbi. He was well-known. I was sent to him for a week, a week and a half, to get my head straight."
Mondrowitz went out of his way to make Weiss' stay a pleasant one. He picked him up at the airport, took him out to eat, then to an amusement park and finally to his place on 60th Street. "His family was away in a cottage in the Catskills and I slept with him in the house. At first it was terrific fun. He took me to all kinds of places and I took in every new thing: it was a perfect trap. At night he asked me where I wanted to sleep, in his son's bed or with him. I remember that he created this queasy atmosphere about his son's bedroom, so I said I wanted to sleep with him. During the night he suddenly touched me. From start to finish, including sodomy. I was naive, I didn't understand what was happening, I thought it was part of his niceness, that this is how he wanted to make me feel good."
What happened in the counseling sessions?
"Almost nothing. It was all one big fraud. In the morning, he was downstairs in the basement, receiving patients, and when he didn't have patients he went with me to all kinds of places, and at night he would come on to me, and on the weekend we drove up to the family's cottage."
When he was 16, Weiss was sent to a boarding school in Kiryat Tivon, near Haifa, where he spent two years, before returning to Chicago. He repressed the Mondrowitz experience successfully. He told no one, and it was as though it had never happened. But one day, during the Sukkot festival, he saw Mondrowitz in the synagogue. He was about to go over to him, when he suddenly understood what had happened to him a few years earlier.
"I froze, turned around and ran home," he relates. "On the way I started to cry, and my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her, but she found it hard to accept. Then my father came home and my mother told him, and he couldn't believe it, either. He tried to find out if maybe I was mistaken. Afterward I went to a friend and told him, but he couldn't believe it, and then I started to ask myself if maybe I was wrong. But a week later I got a call from a rabbi who asked me to see him at his home. I entered his office and he asked me, 'Would you send your children to Mondrowitz?' It was like a bomb went off in my head. I was in a state of shock. It took me a few minutes to reply, 'No, I wouldn't.' He asked why, and I told him, but again, nothing happened."
Weiss, who is married and has three children, lives in New Jersey, where he installs home movie systems. In 2001 he saw an ad in a religious paper about a conference of rabbis in New York on the subject of sexual molestation. "I went there," he says, "but it was disgraceful. I realized within a few minutes that they had no idea about what really goes on. They think that with them it's not like with the goyim or secular people, and they think they know how to help children. The truth is that they don't have a clue, because they sweep everything under the rug. It's all because of the matchmaking, because if it ever gets out what these people went through, no one wants them."
Are you angry at the rabbis?
"They silenced a whole generation. When one of them destroys other people, they do nothing. These are far more important matters than the shmita year [the land lying fallow every seven years] or worms in lettuce."
A public beating
G., 44, from New York, married with children, a rabbi's son, knew Mondrowitz as the head of a yeshiva he attended for five years, from the age of 11. "He molested me for many years," G. says. "He collected vulnerable children from broken homes who didn't get along with their parents, and abused them. He took me to the mountains, where he had a cottage. He would bring rifles and play with us, we would have contests shooting air guns, and he would win so that he could later do what he wanted with us as his prize. There was a dirty film playing in Manhattan at the time, called 'Caligula,' and he took me to see it. I was 14, and during the movie he pawed me."
Did you know that was bad?
"I'm not sure I knew. He was an adult, the head of a yeshiva. He gave me a lot of money and bought me things. After I understood, I came to the school one day and went up to each kid and told them to keep their distance from him. Then he entered the classroom and in front of everyone he pounded me really hard with both hands, on my face and back. That was already the end of high school; I was 18 at the time. And the whole time he kept telling me that I was weird and would never marry."
Did you tell your parents?
"Never. I was afraid he would beat me."
How do you live with a story like this?
"It's very hard. I now have terrible guilt feelings that maybe I did something bad and deserved everything that happened to me. I get very aggressive toward people when they seem to be approaching my children. I overprotect them and I have become very suspicious. All these years I repressed everything, and only recently did I begin professional therapy."
245 years in prison
At the beginning of the 1980s, when Mondrowitz was at the height of his glory, married and the father of seven children, rumors started to spread in the Orthodox community about the type of treatment he was giving, and his yeshiva closed down. On November 21, 1984, Detective Patricia Kehoe received an anonymous phone call about Mondrowitz's many victims.
"I will never forget it, because it was my birthday," Kehoe says in a phone conversation. "I was working in the sex crimes unit. It was a horrific conversation, but even more horrific were the stories of the victims we found that night. My partner and I went there immediately, and on his block we met children, but not Jews. His street was mixed - Jews and Italians lived there. It turned out that he was the friend of all of them, and all the parents thought he was this great guy. They told us that he took the children for weekends and bought them bikes. That shook me, and I asked the parents to let me talk with the children alone.
"The first boy I talked to broke down and said straight off what happened, and so did all the other children on the block. That night we found five victims. From them we received the names of other children and went on investigating. Then we received another anonymous call from someone who said he was a rabbi, and he told me about Jewish children he had molested. I went to the yeshiva to question more children, but they wouldn't let me in."
Kehoe's investigation eventually yielded four complaints by children of Italian origin aged 11 to 16, which led to an indictment of 13 counts: five counts of sodomy in the first degree and eight of sexual abuse in the first degree. The maximum punishment for these offenses in New York State is 25 years for each count of sodomy and 15 years for each count of sexual abuse, a total of 245 years. Two weeks later, the District Attorney's office issued a warrant for his arrest. When Kehoe and her partner, Detective Sal Catalfulmo, arrived at Mondrowitz's home with the warrant, they found it empty.
"We got the warrant from the judge in the middle of the night, but when we got there he was already gone," Kehoe says. "In his study we found lists with the names of hundreds of children and a great deal of pedophilic material. It then turned out that his wife and children hid with relatives and he went to his parents in Chicago, from there apparently to Canada and then to Israel. If you ask me, the whole thing worked too slowly. The DA's office delayed and he was able to escape."
Was there nothing you could do to speed up the process?
"I was only a policewoman, not a politician like the DA. If it had been up to me, I would have issued an arrest warrant immediately after the children complained. I am very happy that these people have now decided to talk, because at the time, when we tried to reach them to question them, we did not get cooperation, but now, when they are parents themselves, they understand how important it is. That man should have been in prison for the past 23 years. It's very frustrating, especially after I heard all the stories about him from the children."
Kehoe learned that Mondrowitz continued to teach and was around children in Israel. "That is awful. Everyone has to be warned about him. I only hope that God will give me a point in my favor after all the efforts I made, even though, at the end of the day, I didn't succeed."
Fake degrees
Avrohom Mondrowitz doesn't leave his home much these days. The last place that employed him, the Jerusalem College of Engineering, has dispensed with his services. "He taught here until the end of last year," says the college spokesman, Daniel Berman.
Why is he no longer working there?
"Because of what you know. What you heard, we also heard."
Searching for a job, Mondrowitz offered himself to the Herzliya Municipality as director of the education, welfare, culture, youth and sports department. When that didn't pan out, he tried for a less prestigious position, as director of a home for the aged, also in Herzliya. He claimed to have considerable experience in treating the elderly.
Mondrowitz's CV is flexible, changing with the circumstances. With every job application he attaches a CV to fit the requirements, or as he himself put it on one occasion, he possesses "a rare talent for flexibility and adaptation."
So rapid is his adaptability that it's hard to follow. According to one resume, he obtained a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia University in 1977, but elsewhere he wrote that in that year he completed a master's degree in educational administration at Long Island University and proceeded immediately to an MBA at Harvard. According to this version, he did not obtain his Ph.D. in psychology until 1984, though still at Columbia. But in yet another place he states that the 1984 degree is in developmental, not clinical, psychology, and is from Columbia University in Florida. And that is not the end. According to another CV, his doctoral degree in clinical psychology is actually from Heed University in Florida.
As far as the Israel Police know, Mondrowitz is currently devoting most of his energy, in the many leisure hours at his disposal, to the Internet. There he gratifies his deviant inclinations by watching clips of sadistic activity and pedophilic material. In his remaining time he makes a living by issuing bogus academic degrees to all comers, particularly to students from the Third World. He has emblems and logos from various universities, as well as seals, examples of signatures and registration forms. He refers most of the students to Thornhill University, in London, which grants degrees by correspondence and has a branch in Brooklyn. The letters that are sent out are signed by a Dr. George Coleman, who probably does not exist. A student who sought a Ph.D. in nuclear physics received a reply from Dr. Coleman to the effect that he was overdoing it, and that on the basis of his academic achievements the most that could be done for him was a degree in a less prestigious field such as education or psychology. In return for issuing a doctoral degree in theology and evangelism, for example, Dr. Coleman gets $2,000.
The Israel Police are taking an interest in Mondrowitz's various Internet occupations, and a month ago, on October 18, he was called in for questioning and released under restrictive conditions, says attorney Adian Daniels, from the law firm of Yigal Arnon, who is in contact with the police. "I am doing this pro bono, because I believe it is in the public interest," he says.
Avi Aviv, head of the computer crimes unit in the Israel Police, confirmed that Mondrowitz had been questioned, but declined to provide further details.
Extraditable
The indictment against Mondrowitz was drawn up in February 1985, and a court order was sent to his empty home in Brooklyn. However, it was not until September of that year that the Brooklyn District Attorney, Elizabeth Holtzman, sought his extradition from Israel. But that was impossible at the time. To begin with, it was not until 1988 that sodomy was recognized in Israel as full-fledged rape, including the sodomizing of males. In addition, at that time the extradition treaty with the United States included rape of a woman, but not sodomy against the will of a male.
"We were ready then to stretch a point and construe sodomy as an extraditable offense, on condition the Americans would also change it in their treaty, but they declined, so we decided not to extradite Mondrowitz," says attorney Irit Kahan, who headed the Justice Ministry's international department. "Recently the extradition treaty with the United States was changed, and now extradition is possible for any offense for which the punishment is more than one year in prison."
Despite this development, the Americans still did not rush to request Mondrowitz's extradition. The victims accuse the present Brooklyn DA, Charles Hynes. In the opinion of attorney Michael Lesher, who represents six of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, "This is an elected position. The Haredi community in Brooklyn has a great deal of electoral clout. Hynes was elected in 1989 with the support of the Orthodox, and no one wants to commit suicide because of some criminal who is sitting quietly in Israel."
In the past year, the community in Brooklyn has begun to seethe. The children of that period, those who see themselves as Mondrowitz's victims, organized and, through Lesher, put pressure on the DA's office to issue a new request for Mondrowitz's extradition. They all declared that if it proves necessary, they will testify in court. As a result, in February of this year the Brooklyn DA's office transferred all the material to the U.S. Justice Department.
"On September 6, the Justice Department issued an official extradition request to the State of Israel," a spokeswoman for the Justice Department said in response. "The statute of limitations does not apply here," Lesher says. "In the case of sodomy, you only have to be charged within five years of the perpetration of the offense, and he was charged but was not brought to court because he fled. There is also a time limitation from the time you are indicted until you are tried, but if the accused leaves his area of jurisdiction, that regulation is suspended. So there is no problem in extraditing Mondrowitz and bringing him to trial."
What stage have the extradition proceedings reached? The Justice Ministry says that the State Prosecutor's Office does not comment on extradition requests, "whether they have been filed or not."
Like poison
Dr. Amy Neustein, a sociologist from Brooklyn, has devoted the past 25 years to getting Mondrowitz arrested. She and other Orthodox Jews established a group with the goal of locating Mondrowitz and bringing him to justice. She also set up a research center in New York called Help Us Regain the Children (HURT), within the framework of which she is investigating the phenomenon of pedophilia within the closed Jewish society. The author of two books, she works with victims of sexual assault to help them cope.
"My aspiration to see justice done and get Mondrowitz tried became an obsession, because of all the molesters, he is the worst, according to the charges. He abused children in the light of day, perpetrated these crimes in front of his colleagues. I was told this by people who witnessed it in the yeshiva he worked in. Everyone knew, and they all covered up for him. As a sociologist I ask, if this is what happens when everything is in the open, what happens when things are less open? It is perfectly clear that Mondrowitz is not alone. He is a microcosm of the Orthodox society, in which pedophilia is rampant, in which the use of pornography is thriving and known to everyone - but it is all hidden under the rug. In the 1980s, everyone was afraid that if he started to talk he would take down others with him."
Neustein and others in Brooklyn tell about three cases of young people committing suicide and one case, last year, of suicide by an adult. "All three went to Mondrowitz for treatment and afterward became deeply depressed, and the families believe that this was the reason for the suicides."
A. says that he can fully understand a boy who would want to commit suicide after undergoing abuse by Mondrowitz. "It is very hard to live with so much pain and guilt. I also have no doubt that some of these victims will do the same things to others. I am certain that it works like poison that was injected into you as a child and then you pass it on."
Mark Weiss has never considered suicide, but he too can understand those who contemplate the act. "I am still alive, and that is not to be taken for granted. There are some who killed themselves, and others who are wandering around like crazy people."
Reached by telephone, Avrohom Mondrowitz refused to comment. He hung up even before he heard the allegations against him.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Israel Police arrest alleged child molester wanted in the U.S.
By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Haaretz - November 16, 2007
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid suspected of sexually abusing Haredi children in the United States, was arrested Friday morning pending extradition orders to the U.S.
Mondrowitz fled the U.S. over 20 years and has been hiding in Israel ever since. The U.S. Justice Department two months ago submitted a request to Israel to extradite the suspect.
The spokesman of the Justice Ministry confirmed the arrest.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect who styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist, was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s.
Police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
An arrest warrant was issued for Mondrowitz in 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it empty. An indictment was drawn in 1985, but Mondrowitz was able to evade arrest due to the complications of extradition.
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By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Haaretz - November 16, 2007
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid suspected of sexually abusing Haredi children in the United States, was arrested Friday morning pending extradition orders to the U.S.
Mondrowitz fled the U.S. over 20 years and has been hiding in Israel ever since. The U.S. Justice Department two months ago submitted a request to Israel to extradite the suspect.
The spokesman of the Justice Ministry confirmed the arrest.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect who styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist, was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s.
Police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
An arrest warrant was issued for Mondrowitz in 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it empty. An indictment was drawn in 1985, but Mondrowitz was able to evade arrest due to the complications of extradition.
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Prosecutors seek extradition of 'rabbi' in 1984 sex abuse case
Newsday - November 16, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) A man accused of sexually abusing children in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn more than two decades ago has been taken into custody in Israel, authorities said Friday.
U.S. officials said Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, described as a self-styled rabbi, was arrested under provisions in a new extradition treaty with Israel.
"Immediately after a new treaty went into effect in January, we made an application for extradition and we are currently awaiting the outcome of that process," the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said in statement. "We are prepared to prosecute Mondrowitz, if and when he is brought back to this country."
The Brooklyn prosecutors declined to detail the charges, saying an indictment handed up in 1984 was still under seal. A Justice Ministry spokesman in Israel confirmed Mondrowitz was awaiting a court appearance there, but gave further details.
According to news accounts, Mondrowitz counseled children at an unlicensed clinic in his Brooklyn home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel after police alleged that he had abused a 10-year-old boy there.
Though Mondrowitz called himself a rabbi, authorities and local officials in the mostly Orthodox section of Borough Park claim there was no evidence that he was ordained.
Newsday - November 16, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) A man accused of sexually abusing children in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn more than two decades ago has been taken into custody in Israel, authorities said Friday.
U.S. officials said Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, described as a self-styled rabbi, was arrested under provisions in a new extradition treaty with Israel.
"Immediately after a new treaty went into effect in January, we made an application for extradition and we are currently awaiting the outcome of that process," the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said in statement. "We are prepared to prosecute Mondrowitz, if and when he is brought back to this country."
The Brooklyn prosecutors declined to detail the charges, saying an indictment handed up in 1984 was still under seal. A Justice Ministry spokesman in Israel confirmed Mondrowitz was awaiting a court appearance there, but gave further details.
According to news accounts, Mondrowitz counseled children at an unlicensed clinic in his Brooklyn home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel after police alleged that he had abused a 10-year-old boy there.
Though Mondrowitz called himself a rabbi, authorities and local officials in the mostly Orthodox section of Borough Park claim there was no evidence that he was ordained.
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22 Years Later, a Child Abuse Suspect's Extradition Is Sought
By TINA KELLEY
New York Times - November 16, 2007
Prosecutors in Brooklyn said yesterday they were pursuing the extradition of a man who fled to Israel more than 20 years ago after being accused of molesting young boys.
The man, Avrohom Mondrowitz, 59, was indicted in 1985 on eight counts of child abuse and five counts of sodomy involving four boys ages 9 to 15. He left for Israel before he could be arrested.
Michael Lesher, a lawyer for six other men who said they had been molested by Mr. Mondrowitz, said that Mr. Mondrowitz was believed to have sexually assaulted boys while posing as an educator or psychological counselor in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said that Mr. Hynes's office had asked the State Department to extradite Mr. Mondrowitz.
Mr. Hynes's predecessor, Elizabeth Holtzman, requested Mr. Mondrowitz's extradition in 1985, but at the time the offenses did not qualify as grounds for extradition under Israeli law, according to a memo written by federal officials and obtained by Mr. Lesher. Mr. Schmetterer said that in January a new extradition treaty went into effect that allowed the request.
A State Department spokeswoman referred questions about the status of the request to the Justice Department. A spokeswoman there, Jaclyn Lesch, said the department did not comment on extradition matters.
Messages left for Mr. Mondrowitz on his cellphone and at his home in Israel were not immediately returned.
Amy Neustein, an author who is editing a book on rabbis and pedophilia, who has researched Mr. Mondrowitz's case, said that Mr. Mondrowitz claimed to have a degree in psychology from a New York university but that the university stated in writing that he had never been a student there. She said that he also posed as a rabbi, but that his credentials were from a nonexistent rabbinical school.
Mr. Lesher said that the case was particularly troubling because Mr. Mondrowitz belonged to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect whose members were reluctant to report his offenses to secular authorities.
Rabbi Mark Dratch, who operates the Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse-Free Environment, a nonprofit organization in New York, said, "Social pressure in the community had a real stifling effect, a silencing effect, not to cooperate with the investigation." He said that such pressure allowed Mr. Mondrowitz "to continue his activities for a while and escape the jurisdiction."
In a statement provided by Mr. Lesher, a man who said he had been one of Mr. Mondrowitz's victims said: "It's now over 20 years and nothing has been done! I know the pain and torture that I go through on a daily basis."
The man, whose name Mr. Lesher did not release to protect his privacy, added, "Knowing that this monster is still out there among children just adds insult to injury."
Mr. Lesher said he hoped that the case against Mr. Mondrowitz, if resolved, could help prevent future molestations.
"I want it to be an example of what it looks like when you do try to sweep something under the rug, and 23 years later it comes back from the dead," he said. He added, "Had we looked at this kind of case differently to begin with, and said, `Let's go to the police and stop this man as soon as we can,' how many of these men wouldn't be victims at all?"
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Israeli police detain self-styled rabbi charged with sexual abuse
Pravda - November 16, 2007
New York police charged a self-styled rabbi with sexually abusing children, but only Israeli police arrested him on Friday.
It was not immediately clear if the ultra-Orthodox Israeli-born Abraham Mondrowitz would be extradited to the United States. The spokesman for the Justice Ministry, Moshe Cohen, said the suspect would be remanded on Sunday.
Mondrowitz, 60, is wanted in New York for molesting hundreds of children under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist who became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic sect in Brooklyn for his expertise with minors, the Haaretz newspaper reported Friday.
The U.S. Justice Department had two months ago resubmitted a 22-year-old request to Israel to extradite the suspect, Haaretz said.
The father of seven fled the United States for Israel in 1985, soon after New York police charged him with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in two instances. The United States requested Mondrowitz's extradition in 1985. Israel ordered his expulsion in 1987.
When the United States requested Mondrowitz's extradition, sodomy - one of the charges against Mondrowitz - was not recognized in Israel as full-fledged rape and thus was not included in the extradition treaty between the countries, Haaretz reported. Although Israel was willing to change the treaty to include sodomy, the United States was not at the time, Irit Kahan, who headed the Justice Ministry's international department at the time, told Haaretz.
Only recently the treaty was changed to include all offenses for which the punishment is more than one year in prison, Kahan said.
When Israel ordered the suspect expelled, Mondrowitz's Israeli lawyer, David Ofek, said the molesting charge was an "ugly libel."
Mondrowitz grew up in Tel Aviv and in Chicago after his family moved to the United States in the 1950s, Haaretz said. In 1979 he moved to Brooklyn, where he impressed the Orthodox Jewish community when he told them he had degrees in clinical psychology and educational administration, and was an ordained rabbi, the daily said. He counseled children at a clinic at his home.
Patricia Kehoe, a retired New York Police Department detective, told Haaretz all the diplomas were fake.
In December 1984, New York City police charged that on two occasions in June of that year, Mondrowitz abused a 10-year-old boy at his home.
U.S. officials had requested Mondrowitz's extradition in 1985 soon after he arrived in Israel, but the Interior Minister at the time, Yitzhak Peretz of the ultra- Orthodox Shas Party, did not act on the request.
The Israeli response to the U.S. extradition request was "lukewarm to negative," according to one American official who spoke on condition of anonymity two years after the request.
Peretz left office several months later, and his replacement, Ronnie Milo, ordered Mondrowitz expelled.
"This is one of the worst cases I could ever imagine," Milo said on Israel Radio in 1987. "After checking the details I decided this man should be sent to the United States and be punished for the terrible things he did to children."
Peretz told Israeli television he refused to extradite Mondrowitz because he had no conclusive proof that the charges against him were true.
Haaretz said that Mondrowitz was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s. New York police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy, Haaretz said.
In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home, the newspaper reported.
Pravda - November 16, 2007
New York police charged a self-styled rabbi with sexually abusing children, but only Israeli police arrested him on Friday.
It was not immediately clear if the ultra-Orthodox Israeli-born Abraham Mondrowitz would be extradited to the United States. The spokesman for the Justice Ministry, Moshe Cohen, said the suspect would be remanded on Sunday.
Mondrowitz, 60, is wanted in New York for molesting hundreds of children under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist who became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic sect in Brooklyn for his expertise with minors, the Haaretz newspaper reported Friday.
The U.S. Justice Department had two months ago resubmitted a 22-year-old request to Israel to extradite the suspect, Haaretz said.
The father of seven fled the United States for Israel in 1985, soon after New York police charged him with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in two instances. The United States requested Mondrowitz's extradition in 1985. Israel ordered his expulsion in 1987.
When the United States requested Mondrowitz's extradition, sodomy - one of the charges against Mondrowitz - was not recognized in Israel as full-fledged rape and thus was not included in the extradition treaty between the countries, Haaretz reported. Although Israel was willing to change the treaty to include sodomy, the United States was not at the time, Irit Kahan, who headed the Justice Ministry's international department at the time, told Haaretz.
Only recently the treaty was changed to include all offenses for which the punishment is more than one year in prison, Kahan said.
When Israel ordered the suspect expelled, Mondrowitz's Israeli lawyer, David Ofek, said the molesting charge was an "ugly libel."
Mondrowitz grew up in Tel Aviv and in Chicago after his family moved to the United States in the 1950s, Haaretz said. In 1979 he moved to Brooklyn, where he impressed the Orthodox Jewish community when he told them he had degrees in clinical psychology and educational administration, and was an ordained rabbi, the daily said. He counseled children at a clinic at his home.
Patricia Kehoe, a retired New York Police Department detective, told Haaretz all the diplomas were fake.
In December 1984, New York City police charged that on two occasions in June of that year, Mondrowitz abused a 10-year-old boy at his home.
U.S. officials had requested Mondrowitz's extradition in 1985 soon after he arrived in Israel, but the Interior Minister at the time, Yitzhak Peretz of the ultra- Orthodox Shas Party, did not act on the request.
The Israeli response to the U.S. extradition request was "lukewarm to negative," according to one American official who spoke on condition of anonymity two years after the request.
Peretz left office several months later, and his replacement, Ronnie Milo, ordered Mondrowitz expelled.
"This is one of the worst cases I could ever imagine," Milo said on Israel Radio in 1987. "After checking the details I decided this man should be sent to the United States and be punished for the terrible things he did to children."
Peretz told Israeli television he refused to extradite Mondrowitz because he had no conclusive proof that the charges against him were true.
Haaretz said that Mondrowitz was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s. New York police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy, Haaretz said.
In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home, the newspaper reported.
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Suspected molester arrested in Israel
United Press International - November 16, 2007
JERUSALEM, Nov. 16 Israeli police have arrested a Brooklyn psychologist who fled to Israel after allegedly molesting children under his care in the 1980s.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 59, is suspected of sexually abusing children in the Gur Hasidic sect who had come to him for counseling. He fled to Israel more than two decades ago and was living in Jerusalem.
Mondrowitz was arrested Friday morning and his extradition to the United States is pending, the Haaretz newspaper reported.
He faces eight counts of child abuse and five counts of sodomy involving four boys ages 9 to 15, The New York Times reported Friday.
A warrant was issued 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it vacated.
An indictment was drawn up a year later, but Mondrowitz was able to evade U.S. authorities due to the complexities of international extradition.
United Press International - November 16, 2007
JERUSALEM, Nov. 16 Israeli police have arrested a Brooklyn psychologist who fled to Israel after allegedly molesting children under his care in the 1980s.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 59, is suspected of sexually abusing children in the Gur Hasidic sect who had come to him for counseling. He fled to Israel more than two decades ago and was living in Jerusalem.
Mondrowitz was arrested Friday morning and his extradition to the United States is pending, the Haaretz newspaper reported.
He faces eight counts of child abuse and five counts of sodomy involving four boys ages 9 to 15, The New York Times reported Friday.
A warrant was issued 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it vacated.
An indictment was drawn up a year later, but Mondrowitz was able to evade U.S. authorities due to the complexities of international extradition.
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Israel Police arrest alleged child molester wanted in the U.S.
By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Haaretz - November 16, 2007
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid suspected of sexually abusing Haredi children in the United States, was arrested Friday morning pending extradition orders to the U.S.
Mondrowitz fled the U.S. over 20 years and has been hiding in Israel ever since. The U.S. Justice Department two months ago submitted a request to Israel to extradite the suspect.
The spokesman of the Justice Ministry confirmed the arrest.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect who styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist, was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s.
Police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
An arrest warrant was issued for Mondrowitz in 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it empty. An indictment was drawn in 1985, but Mondrowitz was able to evade arrest due to the complications of extradition.
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Breaking: Activists Cheer Arrest of Monrowitz in Israel
by Adam Dickter
by Adam Dickter
New York Jewish Week - November 16, 2007
One of the accusers claims he came to Mondrowitz to be treated after being abused by a teacher, only to then be abused again by Mondrowitz, whose credentials as both a rabbi and psychologist have been disputed by critics who have delved into his background.
The case has been a political thorn in the side of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes for years as sex-abuse watchdogs accused him of reluctance to apprehend and prosecute Mondrowitz for fear of offending Orthodox voters. The case has also been notorious because of allegations that teachers and rabbis in Mondrowitz's community looked the other way when confronted with accusations against him.
Hynes has said, through a spokesman, that until recent changes in extradition law between the U.S. were made, Mondrowitz was beyond his reach.
Earlier this week Israeli authorities nabbed another man accused of molesting Orthodox boys, Stefan Colmer, whose extradition was also sought by Hynes.
Mondrowitz lived in Tel Aviv and moved to Chicago in the 1950s, attending the Telshe yeshiva in Wickliffe, Ohio, according to Haaretz. He became a respected commentator and lecturer and opened a psychotherapy practice.
Rabbi Mark Dratch, founder of Jsafe, an organization supporting victims of sexual abuse in the Jewish community, said he has spoken with two of Mondrowitz's accusers, and believes there may be "hundreds" more.
"This is a tremendous step toward justice," said the rabbi of the pending extradition. "It gives hope to his victims and victims of other perpetrators may now be encouraged to step forward."
He said the Mondrowitz case was particularly notorious because of the large number of victims and because of the pressure on victims in the community not to come forward."
In the years since, says Rabbi Dratch, "across the spectrum of the community there is a lot more awareness and programs and safeguards in place, but we still have a long way to go. There are still issues to be addressed, such as fear of reporting to legal authorities." Amy Neustein, an activist who is writing a book about rabbinic abuse, called the arrest of Mondrowitz "a ray of sunshine for the victims because of the pain they have carried around for almost 25 years."
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Police arrest purported rabbi charged with sexual abuse
Associated Press - November 16, 2007
Police arrested on Friday a self-styled rabbi, a spokesman said, twenty-three years after New York police charged him with sexual abuse.
Abraham Mondrowitz will be remanded on Sunday, said the Justice Ministry spokesman, Moshe Cohen. He could not give further details.
The US Justice Department had two months ago resubmitted a 22-year-old request to Israel to extradite the suspect who may have abused hundreds of children, Ha'aretz reported Friday.
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Associated Press - November 16, 2007
Police arrested on Friday a self-styled rabbi, a spokesman said, twenty-three years after New York police charged him with sexual abuse.
Abraham Mondrowitz will be remanded on Sunday, said the Justice Ministry spokesman, Moshe Cohen. He could not give further details.
The US Justice Department had two months ago resubmitted a 22-year-old request to Israel to extradite the suspect who may have abused hundreds of children, Ha'aretz reported Friday.
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Ex-Brooklyn rabbi likely to be dragged back to Brooklyn to face kid-sex charges
BY Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem, Joe Gould and Dave Goldiner in New York
New York Daily News - Saturday, November 17th 2007
An Ex-Brooklyn rabbi accused of raping several boys more than 20 years ago has been arrested in Israel and could finally face justice.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, a married father of seven, could be headed back to Brooklyn because a new agreement with the U.S. allows extradition for the sodomy and sex abuse counts he faces from a 1985 indictment.
"I don't see it as a moment for celebration," said Michael Lesher, who represents six adult men who claim to have been abused by Mondrowitz.
"This is a moment of gratitude to victims who came forward, who were willing to expose their pain."
Mondrowitz has a hearing in an Israeli court Sunday that could clear the way for him to be returned to Brooklyn for trial.
The case was jump-started a few weeks ago after the U.S. and Israel agreed to extradite suspects who face at least a year in prison.
Mondrowitz was once a popular child psychologist and youth counselor in Borough Park, where he was especially well-known among ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews.
He fled to Israel after several boys filed horrific complaints claiming he sodomized them after befriending them or taking them to amusement parks and movies.
Sometimes, he would rape them in his counseling office even as their parents waited outside, the boys claimed.
"Finally, justice will prevail," said Rabbi Mark Dratch of J-SAFE, a child-abuse prevention group.
Mondrowitz's wife insisted he would fight extradition.
"He's absolutely innocent," she said at their Jerusalem apartment.
Mondrowitz's case attracted controversy because critics claimed District Attorney Joe Hynes put the explosive case on the back burner under pressure from Hasidic community leaders. His office has emphatically denied that charge and insisted it was pushing for a legal way to try Mondrowitz.
BY Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem, Joe Gould and Dave Goldiner in New York
New York Daily News - Saturday, November 17th 2007
An Ex-Brooklyn rabbi accused of raping several boys more than 20 years ago has been arrested in Israel and could finally face justice.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, a married father of seven, could be headed back to Brooklyn because a new agreement with the U.S. allows extradition for the sodomy and sex abuse counts he faces from a 1985 indictment.
"I don't see it as a moment for celebration," said Michael Lesher, who represents six adult men who claim to have been abused by Mondrowitz.
"This is a moment of gratitude to victims who came forward, who were willing to expose their pain."
Mondrowitz has a hearing in an Israeli court Sunday that could clear the way for him to be returned to Brooklyn for trial.
The case was jump-started a few weeks ago after the U.S. and Israel agreed to extradite suspects who face at least a year in prison.
Mondrowitz was once a popular child psychologist and youth counselor in Borough Park, where he was especially well-known among ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews.
He fled to Israel after several boys filed horrific complaints claiming he sodomized them after befriending them or taking them to amusement parks and movies.
Sometimes, he would rape them in his counseling office even as their parents waited outside, the boys claimed.
"Finally, justice will prevail," said Rabbi Mark Dratch of J-SAFE, a child-abuse prevention group.
Mondrowitz's wife insisted he would fight extradition.
"He's absolutely innocent," she said at their Jerusalem apartment.
Mondrowitz's case attracted controversy because critics claimed District Attorney Joe Hynes put the explosive case on the back burner under pressure from Hasidic community leaders. His office has emphatically denied that charge and insisted it was pushing for a legal way to try Mondrowitz.
_________________________________________________________________________________
A man accused of sexually abusing children in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn more than 20 years ago has been taken into custody in Israel, authorities said Friday. U.S. officials said Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, self-described as a rabbi, was arrested under provisions in a new extradition treaty with Israel. "Immediately after a new treaty went into effect in January, we made an application for extradition and we are currently awaiting the outcome of that process," the Brooklyn district attorney's office said in a statement. "We are prepared to prosecute Mondrowitz, if and when he is brought back to this country." The Brooklyn prosecutors declined to detail the charges, saying an indictment handed up in 1984 was still under seal. A Justice Ministry spokesman in Israel confirmed Mondrowitz was awaiting a court appearance there, but gave no further details. According to news accounts, Mondrowitz counseled children at an unlicensed clinic in his Brooklyn home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel after police alleged that he had abused a 10-year-old boy there. Though Mondrowitz called himself a rabbi, authorities and local officials in the mostly Orthodox section of Borough Park said there was no evidence that he was ordained.
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Fugitive 'Pervert' Rabbi Held
Jailed in Israel after 22 yrs.
By PHILIP MESSING
New York Post - November 17, 2007
Jailed in Israel after 22 yrs.
By PHILIP MESSING
New York Post - November 17, 2007
A disgraced self-proclaimed rabbi who police suspect molested hundreds of children in Brooklyn is finally behind bars after evading justice for more than 20 years, authorities said.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, fled the United States for Israel in 1985 after he was indicted for sexually abusing four children in his Borough Park community, where he reportedly worked as a counselor with bogus credentials.
"My reaction was, 'Finally!' " said one of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, Mark Weiss, 40. "We have a monster that has been taken off the streets."
Mondrowitz, who once hosted a radio show in the city, was arrested in Jerusalem yesterday.
He will go to court tomorrow to be remanded until his extradition hearing, said a spokesman for the Israeli Justice Ministry, Moshe Cohen.
The case against Mondrowitz represented one of the most shocking allegations of sexual abuse by a respected Orthodox Jewish religious and community leader in the late '70s and early '80s.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Mondrowitz has worked odd jobs as an educator and fund-raiser while in Israel.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, fled the United States for Israel in 1985 after he was indicted for sexually abusing four children in his Borough Park community, where he reportedly worked as a counselor with bogus credentials.
"My reaction was, 'Finally!' " said one of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, Mark Weiss, 40. "We have a monster that has been taken off the streets."
Mondrowitz, who once hosted a radio show in the city, was arrested in Jerusalem yesterday.
He will go to court tomorrow to be remanded until his extradition hearing, said a spokesman for the Israeli Justice Ministry, Moshe Cohen.
The case against Mondrowitz represented one of the most shocking allegations of sexual abuse by a respected Orthodox Jewish religious and community leader in the late '70s and early '80s.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Mondrowitz has worked odd jobs as an educator and fund-raiser while in Israel.
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Israel requests clarification of U.S. extradition request for suspect of sodomy
The Associated Press - November 17, 2007
JERUSALEM: Israel has requested clarifications of a U.S. request for extradition of an Israeli man wanted in New York for allegedly sodomizing and sexually abusing several boys ages 9 to 15 more than 20 years ago, a spokesman said Saturday.
Israeli police arrested Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, before dawn Friday at his home in the ultra Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Nahlaot.
The suspect's detention came two months after the United States had resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled his Brooklyn, N.Y. home for Israel in light of police charges against him, Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said.
The new U.S. request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to encompass all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Prior to the change that took effect in January of this year, the treaty did not cover crimes relating to sodomy.
Israel has requested a few corrections in the U.S. extradition request, the state prosecutor's office said in a request to be submitted Sunday for an extension of Mondrowitz's arrest by 12 days.
Police in Brooklyn first charged Mondrowitz with sexual abuse 23 years ago. Mondrowitz worked under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist out of a clinic in his home, Haaretz newspaper reported. He became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic community — and his Italian-American neighbors — for his expertise with minors, Haaretz said.
Mondrowitz would often take children he was treating to amusement parks or buy them gifts to win their trust, Haaretz said.
Mondrowitz was born in Israel and grew up in Tel Aviv, Haaretz said. His family moved to Chicago in the 1950s, the daily said. In 1979 he moved to Brooklyn, Haaretz reported.
Under New York law, those convicted with first degree sodomy can receive 25 years in jail, according to Israel's state prosecutor's office. Punishment for first degree sexual abuse brings a seven-year punishment, the office said.
The Associated Press - November 17, 2007
JERUSALEM: Israel has requested clarifications of a U.S. request for extradition of an Israeli man wanted in New York for allegedly sodomizing and sexually abusing several boys ages 9 to 15 more than 20 years ago, a spokesman said Saturday.
Israeli police arrested Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, before dawn Friday at his home in the ultra Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Nahlaot.
The suspect's detention came two months after the United States had resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled his Brooklyn, N.Y. home for Israel in light of police charges against him, Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said.
The new U.S. request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to encompass all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Prior to the change that took effect in January of this year, the treaty did not cover crimes relating to sodomy.
Israel has requested a few corrections in the U.S. extradition request, the state prosecutor's office said in a request to be submitted Sunday for an extension of Mondrowitz's arrest by 12 days.
Police in Brooklyn first charged Mondrowitz with sexual abuse 23 years ago. Mondrowitz worked under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist out of a clinic in his home, Haaretz newspaper reported. He became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic community — and his Italian-American neighbors — for his expertise with minors, Haaretz said.
Mondrowitz would often take children he was treating to amusement parks or buy them gifts to win their trust, Haaretz said.
Mondrowitz was born in Israel and grew up in Tel Aviv, Haaretz said. His family moved to Chicago in the 1950s, the daily said. In 1979 he moved to Brooklyn, Haaretz reported.
Under New York law, those convicted with first degree sodomy can receive 25 years in jail, according to Israel's state prosecutor's office. Punishment for first degree sexual abuse brings a seven-year punishment, the office said.
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Israel asks U.S. to clarify call to extradite alleged pedophile
By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Haaretz - November 18, 2007
Israel has requested clarifications of a U.S. request for extradition of an Israeli man wanted in New York for allegedly sodomizing and sexually abusing several boys ages 9 to 15 more than 20 years ago, a spokesman said Saturday.
Israel has requested a few corrections in the U.S. extradition request, the state prosecutor's office said in a request to be submitted Sunday for an extension of Mondrowitz's arrest by 12 days.
Israeli police arrested Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, before dawn Friday at his home in the ultra Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Nahlaot.
The suspect's detention came two months after the United States had resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled his Brooklyn, N.Y. home for Israel in light of police charges against him, Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said.
Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid suspected of sexually abusing Haredi children in the United States, was arrested Friday morning pending extradition orders to the U.S.
Mondrowitz fled the U.S. over 20 years ago and has been hiding in Israel ever since. The U.S. Justice Department two months ago submitted a request to Israel to extradite the suspect.
The spokesman of the Justice Ministry confirmed the arrest.
Mondrowitz styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist and was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s.
Police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
An arrest warrant was issued for Mondrowitz in 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it empty. An indictment was drawn in 1985, but Mondrowitz was able to evade arrest due to the complications of extradition.
_________________________________________________________________________________
By Aviva Lori, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Haaretz - November 18, 2007
Israel has requested clarifications of a U.S. request for extradition of an Israeli man wanted in New York for allegedly sodomizing and sexually abusing several boys ages 9 to 15 more than 20 years ago, a spokesman said Saturday.
Israel has requested a few corrections in the U.S. extradition request, the state prosecutor's office said in a request to be submitted Sunday for an extension of Mondrowitz's arrest by 12 days.
Israeli police arrested Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, before dawn Friday at his home in the ultra Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Nahlaot.
The suspect's detention came two months after the United States had resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled his Brooklyn, N.Y. home for Israel in light of police charges against him, Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said.
Mondrowitz, a Gur Hasid suspected of sexually abusing Haredi children in the United States, was arrested Friday morning pending extradition orders to the U.S.
Mondrowitz fled the U.S. over 20 years ago and has been hiding in Israel ever since. The U.S. Justice Department two months ago submitted a request to Israel to extradite the suspect.
The spokesman of the Justice Ministry confirmed the arrest.
Mondrowitz styles himself a rabbi and a psychologist and was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s.
Police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, including with acts of sodomy. In many cases, the parents were waiting in the next room for the treatment to end, so they could take the children home. Those are the facts as collected by the Brooklyn police and told by the children.
An arrest warrant was issued for Mondrowitz in 1984, but when police arrived at his Brooklyn home to arrest him, they found it empty. An indictment was drawn in 1985, but Mondrowitz was able to evade arrest due to the complications of extradition.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Man arrested over alleged sexual offenses in U.S.
By Aviva Lori
Haaretz - November 2, 2007
On Friday morning, police officers arrested Avrohom Mondrowitz at his Jerusalem home, at the request of the international division of the State Prosecutor's Office and in cooperation with the Interpol unit of the Israel Police.
Mondrowitz is wanted in the U.S. on suspicion of sexual offenses against children in the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn, N.Y. between 1980-84. In the fall of 1984, he fled to Israel.
Two extradition requests have been submitted to Israel, one in 1985 and the second in September. Israel did not respond to the first request on the grounds that the extradition agreement between Israel and the U.S. did not allow for it. The most serious of the crimes of which Mondrowitz was accused, sodomy, was not an extraditable offense at the time.
Last January, a new extradition agreement was signed between the U.S. and Israel permitting extradition for any crime punishable by more than one year in prison.
On Thursday, Haaretz Magazine published an article about Mondrowitz's alleged offenses and victims. The latter are now men between the ages of 35 and 45 from Brooklyn. He was arrested the next day.
"We fear he'll flee again and disappear," police sources said, "that he'll go into Mea Shearim and then we'll never find him because there it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
Can someone be extradited retroactively, according to the amended extradition convention?
"Extradition conventions are procedural, not material, there's a ruling on that," explained Irit Kahan, former head of the international division of the State Prosecutor's Office. "In extradition, we only transfer a person for trial and don't determine guilt or innocence, so someone can be extradited for offenses that were not and the list of extraditable offenses in the past and are now, even retroactively."
Mondrowitz is to be arraigned this afternoon.
By Aviva Lori
Haaretz - November 2, 2007
On Friday morning, police officers arrested Avrohom Mondrowitz at his Jerusalem home, at the request of the international division of the State Prosecutor's Office and in cooperation with the Interpol unit of the Israel Police.
Mondrowitz is wanted in the U.S. on suspicion of sexual offenses against children in the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn, N.Y. between 1980-84. In the fall of 1984, he fled to Israel.
Two extradition requests have been submitted to Israel, one in 1985 and the second in September. Israel did not respond to the first request on the grounds that the extradition agreement between Israel and the U.S. did not allow for it. The most serious of the crimes of which Mondrowitz was accused, sodomy, was not an extraditable offense at the time.
Last January, a new extradition agreement was signed between the U.S. and Israel permitting extradition for any crime punishable by more than one year in prison.
On Thursday, Haaretz Magazine published an article about Mondrowitz's alleged offenses and victims. The latter are now men between the ages of 35 and 45 from Brooklyn. He was arrested the next day.
"We fear he'll flee again and disappear," police sources said, "that he'll go into Mea Shearim and then we'll never find him because there it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
Can someone be extradited retroactively, according to the amended extradition convention?
"Extradition conventions are procedural, not material, there's a ruling on that," explained Irit Kahan, former head of the international division of the State Prosecutor's Office. "In extradition, we only transfer a person for trial and don't determine guilt or innocence, so someone can be extradited for offenses that were not and the list of extraditable offenses in the past and are now, even retroactively."
Mondrowitz is to be arraigned this afternoon.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Ex-Brooklyn Rabbi Could Face Sex Assault Charges
By Jay Bushinsky - Reports From Jerusalem
1010wins - November 17, 2007
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- An Ex-Brooklyn rabbi, accused of sexually abusing several boys over 20 years ago, is under arrest in Israel and could be headed back to the United States to face the charges.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, is scheduled to appear before a Jerusalem court Monday morning for an extradition hearing that could clear the way for him to return to Brooklyn for trial.
Mondrowitz, who was apparently well-known in the Orthodox Hasidic community in Borough Park, fled to Israel after several boys filed complaints claiming he sodomized them in 1985.
His extradition became possible a few weeks ago when the U.S. and Israel agreed to extradite alleged pedophiles.
By Jay Bushinsky - Reports From Jerusalem
1010wins - November 17, 2007
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- An Ex-Brooklyn rabbi, accused of sexually abusing several boys over 20 years ago, is under arrest in Israel and could be headed back to the United States to face the charges.
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, is scheduled to appear before a Jerusalem court Monday morning for an extradition hearing that could clear the way for him to return to Brooklyn for trial.
Mondrowitz, who was apparently well-known in the Orthodox Hasidic community in Borough Park, fled to Israel after several boys filed complaints claiming he sodomized them in 1985.
His extradition became possible a few weeks ago when the U.S. and Israel agreed to extradite alleged pedophiles.
_________________________________________________________________________________
US ultra-Orthodox Jew appears in Jerusalem court
Associated Press - Nov. 18, 2007
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who fled the United States for Israel two decades ago to avoid sexual abuse charges was brought to court in Jerusalem on Sunday, a step toward his possible extradition.
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem on Friday for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
At the downtown Jerusalem court building, Mondrowitz - small, slightly stooped and dressed in a black suit - was led into the hearing room with hands and ankles shackled, while four burly guards in khaki uniforms stood watched at the door.
The judge extended Mondrowitz's detention until November 27, at which point he will decide whether Mondrowitz will remain in jail or be placed under house arrest.
Mondrowitz's attorney, David Ofek, said he plans to appeal the decision to keep Mondrowitz in custody.
"The state didn't take action for 25 years, so they cannot bring the case back (now)," Ofek said, adding that he has seen no medical reports indicating abuse.
Two months ago the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled Brooklyn for Israel, said the spokesman for the Israeli Justice Ministry, Moshe Cohen.
The renewed US request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Before the change that took effect in January, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
Sunday's ruling followed an expose on Mondrowitz in Haaretz's weekend magazine, which first appeared Thursday, a day before the arrest. The paper reported that the statute of limitations does not apply to crimes in which the suspect has fled to avoid charges.
Associated Press - Nov. 18, 2007
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who fled the United States for Israel two decades ago to avoid sexual abuse charges was brought to court in Jerusalem on Sunday, a step toward his possible extradition.Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem on Friday for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
At the downtown Jerusalem court building, Mondrowitz - small, slightly stooped and dressed in a black suit - was led into the hearing room with hands and ankles shackled, while four burly guards in khaki uniforms stood watched at the door.
The judge extended Mondrowitz's detention until November 27, at which point he will decide whether Mondrowitz will remain in jail or be placed under house arrest.
Mondrowitz's attorney, David Ofek, said he plans to appeal the decision to keep Mondrowitz in custody.
"The state didn't take action for 25 years, so they cannot bring the case back (now)," Ofek said, adding that he has seen no medical reports indicating abuse.
Two months ago the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled Brooklyn for Israel, said the spokesman for the Israeli Justice Ministry, Moshe Cohen.
The renewed US request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Before the change that took effect in January, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
Sunday's ruling followed an expose on Mondrowitz in Haaretz's weekend magazine, which first appeared Thursday, a day before the arrest. The paper reported that the statute of limitations does not apply to crimes in which the suspect has fled to avoid charges.
_________________________________________________________________________________
CALL TO ACTION #1
Unorthodox Jew - November 18, 2007
CALL TO ACTION:
This Call to Action was Cancelled on November 25, 2007 After Receiving a Message from Sol Werdiger and the Gerer Rebbe
Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz is currently sitting in a jail in Jerusalem, Israel awaiting an extradition trail scheduled for November 27, 2007. The Gerer Rebbe has been doing his best to stop the extradition.
Call Sol Werdiger and tell him to convey the following message to the Gerer Rebbe:
That as a people we are not going to tolerate any more coverups and whitewashings for Avrohom Mondrowitz; that it is manditory this man must face justice for his alleged sex crimes.
That anyone who aids or protects this criminal is morally as culpable as the criminal himself; and that we will be sure to expose anyone guilty of coverup just as we are succeeding in exposing the story of Mondrowitz.
You might want to mention Pirkei Avoth, 4:5: "Whoever is mi'chalel Hashem in secret will be chastised publicly."
Contact info for Sol Werdiger:
212-594-9700
SWERDIGER @ OUTERSTUFF.COM
Unorthodox Jew - November 18, 2007
CALL TO ACTION:
This Call to Action was Cancelled on November 25, 2007 After Receiving a Message from Sol Werdiger and the Gerer Rebbe
Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz is currently sitting in a jail in Jerusalem, Israel awaiting an extradition trail scheduled for November 27, 2007. The Gerer Rebbe has been doing his best to stop the extradition.
Call Sol Werdiger and tell him to convey the following message to the Gerer Rebbe:
That as a people we are not going to tolerate any more coverups and whitewashings for Avrohom Mondrowitz; that it is manditory this man must face justice for his alleged sex crimes.
That anyone who aids or protects this criminal is morally as culpable as the criminal himself; and that we will be sure to expose anyone guilty of coverup just as we are succeeding in exposing the story of Mondrowitz.
You might want to mention Pirkei Avoth, 4:5: "Whoever is mi'chalel Hashem in secret will be chastised publicly."
Contact info for Sol Werdiger:
212-594-9700
SWERDIGER @ OUTERSTUFF.COM
________________________________________________________________________________
Message from Sol Werdiger and the Gerer Rebbe Regarding Avrohom Mondrowitz
November 25, 2007
The Awareness Center forward to you which was originally posted by blogger -- Unorthodox Jew (UOJ). The CALL TO ACTION was regarding the case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz's extradition from Israel back to the United States.
Tonight I received a phone call from an extremely reliable source who spoke to Sol Werdiger regarding Mondrowitz.
Sol Werdiger stated that both he and the Gerer Rebbe are not trying to stop the extradition of Avrohom Mondrowitz. Both are advocates of the legal process and feel Avrohom Mondrowitz should be extradited and that those he allegedly victimized should be allowed to have their day in court.
I got the impression from my source that both the Gerer Rebbe and Sol Werdiger feel that Avrohom Mondrowitz is guilty of his alleged sex crimes.
Sincerely,
Vicki Polin,
Executive Director - The Awareness Center
November 25, 2007
The Awareness Center forward to you which was originally posted by blogger -- Unorthodox Jew (UOJ). The CALL TO ACTION was regarding the case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz's extradition from Israel back to the United States.
Tonight I received a phone call from an extremely reliable source who spoke to Sol Werdiger regarding Mondrowitz.
Sol Werdiger stated that both he and the Gerer Rebbe are not trying to stop the extradition of Avrohom Mondrowitz. Both are advocates of the legal process and feel Avrohom Mondrowitz should be extradited and that those he allegedly victimized should be allowed to have their day in court.
I got the impression from my source that both the Gerer Rebbe and Sol Werdiger feel that Avrohom Mondrowitz is guilty of his alleged sex crimes.
Sincerely,
Vicki Polin,
Executive Director - The Awareness Center
_________________________________________________________________________________
CALL TO ACTION #2
You are being asked to I send an e-mail to Israel's Department of Justice. The Israeli government needs to be made aware of how important it is to bring alleged serial child molester - Avrohom Mondrowitz, back to the United States to be brought in front of a court of law in regards to the serious allegations made against him.
The e-mail address is :YaelK@ justice.gov.il
Sample letter:
Subject: Avrohom Mondrowitz' Extradition
To: YaelK@ justice.gov.il
I am writing to request that the Israeli government comply with the U.S, Department of Justice's request to have Avrohom Mondrowitz extradited so that he can face charges of rape and sodomy.
I am asking that this request be fulfilled immediately so that justice should not be delayed any further. There are scores of individuals who have been sexually victimized by Avrohom Mondrowitz, and they have been waiting unjustly for 23 years. Now is the opportunity for the Israeli government to do the right thing, by extraditing Mondrowitz immediatly. Please note, the American public (both the Jewish and Non-Jewish) will will not rest or stand still if justice is delayed any further in this case. I hope that you see the urgency of this matter and work diligently to expedite the extradition.
Sincerely,
Your Name
You are being asked to I send an e-mail to Israel's Department of Justice. The Israeli government needs to be made aware of how important it is to bring alleged serial child molester - Avrohom Mondrowitz, back to the United States to be brought in front of a court of law in regards to the serious allegations made against him.
The e-mail address is :YaelK@ justice.gov.il
Sample letter:
Subject: Avrohom Mondrowitz' Extradition
To: YaelK@ justice.gov.il
I am writing to request that the Israeli government comply with the U.S, Department of Justice's request to have Avrohom Mondrowitz extradited so that he can face charges of rape and sodomy.
I am asking that this request be fulfilled immediately so that justice should not be delayed any further. There are scores of individuals who have been sexually victimized by Avrohom Mondrowitz, and they have been waiting unjustly for 23 years. Now is the opportunity for the Israeli government to do the right thing, by extraditing Mondrowitz immediatly. Please note, the American public (both the Jewish and Non-Jewish) will will not rest or stand still if justice is delayed any further in this case. I hope that you see the urgency of this matter and work diligently to expedite the extradition.
Sincerely,
Your Name
_________________________________________________________________________________
Ex-Brooklyn rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz faces extradition to U.S. on kid-sex rap
BY MATTHEW KALMAN
New York Daily News - Monday, November 19th 2007, 4:00 AM
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a father of seven, faces extradition to stand trial in New York to answer a 1985 indictment on four counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree.
Mondrowitz, 60, once a popular child psychologist and youth counselor in Borough Park, allegedly sodomized the boys after befriending them or after taking them on trips to the movies and amusement parks.
The U.S. extradition request, resubmitted in September after a change in the treaty between the U.S. and Israel, was delayed after one of the five complainants withdrew from the case.
The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file an amended request this week.
Mondrowitz was arrested early Friday morning at his Jerusalem home and arraigned the same day.
Judge Shimon Feinberg, vice president of the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court, found that Mondrowitz was a possible candidate for extradition and rejected defense arguments that the statute of limitations applied to the offenses, even though they were allegedly committed more than 20 years ago.
Feinberg granted a prosecution request to extend Mondrowitz's imprisonment until Nov. 27 after the prosecution told the court that an Israeli police raid on Mondrowitz's home in May had netted four pedophile movies.
Mondrowitz is due to appear in court again Nov. 27, when Feinberg will decide whether to extend his jailing until the end of the extradition proceedings, which could take several months.
Mondrowitz's wife, Raizel, declared his innocence.
"People can come up 25 years later and say all kinds of things about anybody. No one's had any complaints about him for the last 25 years. This is all old stuff," she said.
BY MATTHEW KALMAN
New York Daily News - Monday, November 19th 2007, 4:00 AM
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a father of seven, faces extradition to stand trial in New York to answer a 1985 indictment on four counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree.Mondrowitz, 60, once a popular child psychologist and youth counselor in Borough Park, allegedly sodomized the boys after befriending them or after taking them on trips to the movies and amusement parks.
The U.S. extradition request, resubmitted in September after a change in the treaty between the U.S. and Israel, was delayed after one of the five complainants withdrew from the case.
The U.S. Justice Department is expected to file an amended request this week.
Mondrowitz was arrested early Friday morning at his Jerusalem home and arraigned the same day.
Judge Shimon Feinberg, vice president of the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court, found that Mondrowitz was a possible candidate for extradition and rejected defense arguments that the statute of limitations applied to the offenses, even though they were allegedly committed more than 20 years ago.
Feinberg granted a prosecution request to extend Mondrowitz's imprisonment until Nov. 27 after the prosecution told the court that an Israeli police raid on Mondrowitz's home in May had netted four pedophile movies.
Mondrowitz is due to appear in court again Nov. 27, when Feinberg will decide whether to extend his jailing until the end of the extradition proceedings, which could take several months.
Mondrowitz's wife, Raizel, declared his innocence.
"People can come up 25 years later and say all kinds of things about anybody. No one's had any complaints about him for the last 25 years. This is all old stuff," she said.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Israel may extradite sex abuse suspect
By Regan E. Doherty
Associated Press - November 19, 2007
JERUSALEM - A man who fled the U.S. for Israel more than two decades ago amid accusations he sexually abused children while pretending to be a rabbi and psychologist appeared in court in Jerusalem — a step toward his possible extradition.
The father of seven fled to Israel in 1985 as New York police investigated charges against him.
Mondrowitz`s attorney, David Ofek, said he plans to appeal the decision to keep him in custody.
The U.S. requested Mondrowitz`s extradition in 1985. Israel ordered his expulsion in 1987, but it was unable to carry out the order as its extradition treaty with the U.S. did not cover sodomy.
Sunday`s ruling followed an expose on Mondrowitz in local daily Haaretz on Thursday.
Patricia Kehoe, a retired NYPD detective, told Haaretz all the diplomas were fake.
Haaretz said that Mondrowitz was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s. New York police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, Haaretz said.
By Regan E. Doherty
Associated Press - November 19, 2007
JERUSALEM - A man who fled the U.S. for Israel more than two decades ago amid accusations he sexually abused children while pretending to be a rabbi and psychologist appeared in court in Jerusalem — a step toward his possible extradition.
The father of seven fled to Israel in 1985 as New York police investigated charges against him.
Mondrowitz`s attorney, David Ofek, said he plans to appeal the decision to keep him in custody.
The U.S. requested Mondrowitz`s extradition in 1985. Israel ordered his expulsion in 1987, but it was unable to carry out the order as its extradition treaty with the U.S. did not cover sodomy.
Sunday`s ruling followed an expose on Mondrowitz in local daily Haaretz on Thursday.
Patricia Kehoe, a retired NYPD detective, told Haaretz all the diplomas were fake.
Haaretz said that Mondrowitz was a highly influential figure in the Gur community of Brooklyn in the early 1980s. New York police suspect Mondrowitz sexually abused children brought to him as patients, Haaretz said.
___________________________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE: Israeli Minister of Justice on the case of Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz
Israeli Minister or Justice - November 29, 2007
http://www.justice.gov.il/mojheb
(English translation)
Israeli Minister or Justice - November 29, 2007
http://www.justice.gov.il/mojheb
(English translation)
On November 16, 2007, Abraham Mondrowitz was arrested by the Israel Police, at the direction of the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney. Mondrowitz was indicted in the United States on five counts of Sodomy in the First Degree, eight counts of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, and one count of Endangering the Welfare of a Child.
Yesterday, the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney filed a petition to Jerusalem's District Court requesting that Mondrowitz be declared extraditable to the United States. In light of the gravity of the crimes for which Mondrowitz has been charged and the concern that he may attempt to flee from Israel and poses a danger to the public, the Department of International Affairs requested that Mondrowitz remain under arrest until the court decides whether or not he is extraditable.
On September 5, 2007, the United States authorities requested that Israeli authorities extradite Mondrowitz for the crimes listed above. After a thorough review of the extradition request, Israeli authorities decided to commence extradition proceedings against Mondrowitz in Israel.
According to the Request for Extradition, an indictment was issued against Mondrowitz in 1985 in New York for the commission of serious sex offenses against five minors between January 1, 1980 and September 15, 1984. The victims were all male, ages nine to fifteen at the time of the commission of the offenses against them.
Mondrowitz fled from the United States to Israel in 1984. The United States authorities sought his arrest at the time; however, Mondrowitz's extradition was only possible after January 2007, when the Protocol amending the Israel United States Extradition Treaty went into effect. Prior to the amending Protocol, the above-mentioned offenses were not extraditable crimes.
Mondrowitz's extradition case is being handled by the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney (prosecutors Nili Gesser and Marlene Mazel-Herskowitz) and in cooperation with the Israeli Police's Interpol Department.
Sincerely,
Merav Haviv
Assistant to the spokesman - Ministry Of Justice
Yesterday, the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney filed a petition to Jerusalem's District Court requesting that Mondrowitz be declared extraditable to the United States. In light of the gravity of the crimes for which Mondrowitz has been charged and the concern that he may attempt to flee from Israel and poses a danger to the public, the Department of International Affairs requested that Mondrowitz remain under arrest until the court decides whether or not he is extraditable.
On September 5, 2007, the United States authorities requested that Israeli authorities extradite Mondrowitz for the crimes listed above. After a thorough review of the extradition request, Israeli authorities decided to commence extradition proceedings against Mondrowitz in Israel.
According to the Request for Extradition, an indictment was issued against Mondrowitz in 1985 in New York for the commission of serious sex offenses against five minors between January 1, 1980 and September 15, 1984. The victims were all male, ages nine to fifteen at the time of the commission of the offenses against them.
Mondrowitz fled from the United States to Israel in 1984. The United States authorities sought his arrest at the time; however, Mondrowitz's extradition was only possible after January 2007, when the Protocol amending the Israel United States Extradition Treaty went into effect. Prior to the amending Protocol, the above-mentioned offenses were not extraditable crimes.
Mondrowitz's extradition case is being handled by the Department of International Affairs of the Office of the State Attorney (prosecutors Nili Gesser and Marlene Mazel-Herskowitz) and in cooperation with the Israeli Police's Interpol Department.
Sincerely,
Merav Haviv
Assistant to the spokesman - Ministry Of Justice
_________________________________________________________________________________
'I planned to murder Mondrowitz'
By Aviva Lori
Haaretz - November 29, 2007
"I wanted to murder him. Or to kidnap him and beat him to within an inch of his life and then dump him somewhere. Or to drag him to the American embassy and then send him back to the United States." The speaker is T., who says he is one of the victims of Avrohom Mondrowitz, the alleged pedophile from Brooklyn who styles himself a rabbi and psychologist, and whose misdeeds were described recently in these pages ("In the basement, behind a closed door," Haaretz Magazine, November 16). T. says that last year he paid someone who came to Israel to come up with an operative plan to assault Mondrowitz. "I sent someone to Israel. An American guy who came on one of the educational programs for American Jews, someone who is not afraid of anything. He did not work alone. He has connections with a few guys in Israel, who were going to do the actual deed."
Then why didn't it happen?
T.: "Mondrowitz was very careful and never went into the street alone. He knows that someone will finish him off one day. Someone who will decide that he doesn't care if he spends the next 50 years in jail. The person I sent on the mission is still in Israel. He sat for four months, preparing a plan - how and where. We found out everything about him, where he lives and how he behaves, but it is very hard to get close to him without anyone seeing, so after four months the guy said he was giving it up."
Would you really send someone to assassinate him?
"If it could be done without being caught, I would definitely do it. I don't want to, but all I know is this: If the law didn't manage to bring him to justice after so many years, the feeling is that no one cares. He isn't just some crook who robbed a store. He destroyed people's lives. I am still going to therapy twice a month. I have problems. I don't trust anyone, don't believe anyone, I am a very suspicious person. I talk to my children about it every week, and it's very hard to tell children not to be friendly with people. In our synagogue there was someone who went over to children and hugged them. Most people thought he was just being sociable, but I went over to him in the middle of the synagogue and gave him a real beating. I said to everyone, 'I am not going to wait around until he does it to one of my kids.'"
T., now 38 and living in New York, was almost 13 when he first met Mondrowitz. Since then he has been haunted by nightmares. "My life today does not exactly follow some 'golden way,'" he says in the Hebrew he learned during his stay in Israel. "I have no doubt that it started there, in that disastrous meeting with Mondrowitz. For some reason, I never told anyone the whole truth."
T.'s parents, Holocaust survivors, settled in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section. After his bar mitzvah he was to enter the Bais Yisroel yeshiva run by the Gur (Gerer) Hasidic sect in Borough Park, Brooklyn. To prepare him for yeshiva life, his parents sent him to a summer camp run by the Gur Hasidim in the Catskills, where he met Mondrowitz for the first time. "He would show up in his car, an Oldsmobile that was as heavy as a Merkava tank. That summer he started to buy me things. He asked me what I liked. I still have a set of books he bought me. He would take me to a pizzeria. I asked him if that was all right, if I was allowed to leave the camp, and he said, 'Yes, of course, I will get you permission.'"
T. doesn't recall Mondrowitz trying to touch him at camp. But he still remembers vividly what he later saw in the yeshiva. To mark the anniversary of the death of the Admor of Gur (the sect's founder), the students made a torch from wax candles, which they cooked in a large pot in the yeshiva's basement kitchen.
"I went down to the dining room, where the kitchen was," T. relates. "It was a bit dark and no one was there, but suddenly I heard noises. I looked around and then I saw them. A boy from the yeshiva, my age or maybe a year older, was leaning on a table. Mondrowitz was on top of him and both of them had their pants down. I was flabbergasted. It was like a nightmare.
"I ran upstairs, into the classroom, and told the teacher what I saw. Straightaway he went out of the classroom with me, and in the corridor he saw the boy and Mondrowitz coming up the stairs. So he saw that I wasn't talking nonsense." (Years later, T. says, "I found out that the boy never did well in life, that he was mentally ill.") The teacher then took T. to the principal and told him what happened. "I remember the principal shouted at me in Yiddish that I was a boy with a filthy mind. We went back to the classroom as though nothing had happened. At around 4 o'clock, Mondrowitz came and said he wanted to take me to his office, that he had to talk to me. He was an authority figure and I couldn't object. I went to his car, and he stopped at a store on 16th Avenue, took me into the store with him and said that the tzitzit [ritual undergarment worn by Orthodox Jewish males] I was wearing was not Hasidic enough and that I needed a more expensive one, made of wool. My father was poor and bought me a simple tzitzit. Mondrowitz then bought me a Coke and for the first time took me to his home, where he started to explain to me that every person needs a different form of therapy and that some children need to have a good feeling. As he was talking, he stuck one hand into my pants and the other into his pants. If I remember well, his wife was home. I went into shock. He asked me if I felt good. I said no, but he kept on and then he said I was too young, that one day I would find out what was really good for me."
The next day, T. told his teacher what had happened at Mondrowitz's home. The teacher promised to deal with it. "The following day, my father got a letter from the yeshiva saying that I was unsuitable and they should look for a different institution for me."
Before the age of 14, T. was sent to a Gur yeshiva in Israel, but was soon expelled, without any explanation. Maybe because he told his friends what he had seen in Brooklyn: "I discovered that there were six kids in the yeshiva whom Mondrowitz had treated."
After that T. stayed with his sister and with another relative, trying to get accepted to other yeshivas, but to no avail.
T. became a street urchin. He slept in the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, sold pictures that he drew, and lived a hand-to-mouth existence. "The Jerusalem bus station was my home. Sometimes I went into a synagogue to sleep. At the age of 21 I was married. I worked for a solar-heating company, rented a place in Ramat Gan and forsook religion.? After 10 years in Israel, T. was divorced. He returned to the United States, found religion again - "I don't believe in religious people, I believe in God" - remarried and raised a new family.
Road to extradition
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, a Gur Hasid, was indicted in the United States on charges of sexual abuse, including sodomy, against hundreds of children, mainly Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), in his neighborhood of Borough Park, Brooklyn, in the early 1980s. The investigation began in 1984, following an anonymous phone call to Patricia Kehoe, a detective in the Brooklyn police sex crimes unit, about Mondrowitz's behavior. But by the time an arrest warrant was issued, Mondrowitz had disappeared. He and his family settled in Jerusalem. He was indicted in 1985, and Israel was asked to extradite him. This was not possible, because at the time the extradition agreement between the two countries did not define sodomy as a felony that mandated extradition. Mondrowitz lived comfortably in his Jerusalem home in the colorful Nahlaot neighborhood, teaching (until he was fired this year), praying three times a day in a local synagogue and, in his leisure time, apparently collecting and watching pedophilic movies and selling fake academic degrees from various universities to all comers.
Last May, local police raided Mondrowitz's home and found four pedophilic films. Two months ago, he was detained and questioned, but released under restrictive conditions. In September, the United States renewed its extradition request after the agreement with Israel was amended at the beginning of this year, so that sodomy is now an extraditable offense. But nothing happened. The police said they were in the midst of an investigation; the Justice Ministry refused to divulge information about its intentions. Mondrowitz continued with his regular routine.
Two weeks ago, on Friday, the day after the article's publication (on Thursday, in the Hebrew version of the Haaretz Magazine), Mondrowitz was arrested for the purpose of extradition. Three days later, he was brought before the vice president of the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, Judge Shimon Fineberg, who extended his remand by a week and wrote that the findings of the investigation "create a reasonable suspicion that [Mondrowitz] is still an active or potential pedophile. The fact that he does not have a police record of sexual abuse in Israel does not render the danger void. It is well known that with offenses such as these, particularly in the Haredi sector, to which the respondent belongs, the victims and their families often do not file complaints with the police owing to their desire to try to solve the problems without involving the police, in order to avert shame in the family. By this I do not find that the respondent committed offenses in Israel, but neither do I find the opposite."
The news of Mondrowitz's arrest was widely reported - more than 70 items appeared all over the world: in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Pravda, The New York Daily News, the news agencies and, of course, in the Jewish press. The reports prompted more people who said they were Mondrowitz's victims to come forward.
One of them is B., the mother of M., an apparent Mondrowitz victim, who committed suicide last year. B. had long agonized over whether to go public. The latest round of reports gave her the impetus she needed. "Before this I didn't know that he had molested so many pure, innocent children," she says.
An Orthodox Jew, B. believes that God took her son in order to alleviate his unbearable pain, which, she says, was inflicted on him after a year of intensive "treatment" by Mondrowitz. Of B.'s three sons, she says two were victimized by Mondrowitz. They were sent to him for therapy when she and her husband were going through a divorce. M. was then nine and a half; G., his brother, was 11.
G., now 38, also takes part in the conversation. He says he was lucky: "He didn't really manage to hurt me, because I ran away. This was in 1981. My parents had just been divorced, and my mother sent me and my younger brother to him for professional help. I remember him as a very impressive person. He smoked a pipe and had a convertible sports car, which attracted a lot of attention. He was cool, you know. The first time I came to him he sat me on his knees and started to kiss me on the lips and fondle me in all kinds of places. I jumped up in a fright and escaped. He told me that if I told anyone, he would hurt me."
In what way?
G.: "I don't know, but he had a terrible look in his eyes and I was really scared."
Did you understand that what he did was wrong?
"I knew that I had a teacher in school who did [bad] things to me, so I knew it was wrong."
G. did not show up for the next session with Mondrowitz. He walked around the building for an hour, but did not go in. Two weeks later, he informed his mother that he would not go again. "We had a big fight. She wanted to know why. I only told her that I didn't like him. She was deeply involved in the divorce and didn?t press the issue."
His younger brother, M., continued to see Mondrowitz. It was not until 10 years later that he disclosed that the man had abused and raped him.
In 1988, during a visit to Jerusalem, G. and his brother saw Mondrowitz at the Western Wall. "I ran to him and started to hit him," G. recalls. "My brother restrained me and separated us. I shouted that this man is an animal who has to be arrested, but in the meantime he ran off."
G. has the names of eight additional people who say they were victims, who contacted him after the article appeared. They decided to urge the U.S. authorities to pressure Israel to extradite Mondrowitz.
"[My brother] M. married but wasn't able to have sexual relations with his wife," G. says. "He got divorced and became a homosexual."
Because of what Mondrowitz did?
"Obviously. Two weeks before his death, he told my father: 'I am not sure that even if Mondrowitz is brought to trial it will ease my suffering and reduce the pain.' We knew that something was not right with him - he did not behave normally. He became sentimental in his relations with people.
He had a problem with religion: He didn't understand how someone could teach religion and do things like that. He couldn't abide the hypocrisy. He used drugs and sank into even more pain. The drugs helped him cope. One day last year he took pills and didn't wake up again. He died in his sleep."
M. was 35 at the time of his death. His mother cannot forgive herself for having sent him to Mondrowitz.
"He was so popular, everyone recommended him," B. relates. "I heard him on his radio program and was impressed by the advice he gave. I was sure that I was helping my children. You don't expect a rabbi to do things like that. Now it turns out he was not a rabbi at all, that everything he told about himself was untrue. That man persuaded me to leave my children alone with him. That way, he said, he could help them more. But one day M. broke down and told me everything. I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. I hugged him and we both sat down and cried and cried without end. I told him, 'Don't ever dare look at that man again, ever. I will see to it that he pays for what he did.' But by the time I figured out what to do, he had already escaped to Israel."
Did you feel that something was amiss with M.?
B.: "I am sure that if I had felt that, I would have done something, but [Mondrowitz] hypnotized him. Afterward I found out that he would convince the children that each of them was unique and special, and that he loved them more than anything in the world, even more than their parents did. He would fill their head with all kinds of crazy things that influence children of that age. He would buy them things and seduce them."
B. says she does not understand why the other rabbis kept silent and did nothing. "It is very hard for me to understand why they protected him. Now I understand that there were too many rabbis who did the same thing. It destroyed the children; even those who remained alive are not really living. It is hard for me to believe that he didn't do it to children in Israel, too, because it's a sickness. Why didn't the police arrest him long ago? Never in my life have I had such a strong urge to kill someone as with this man. The only way to deal with him is by cutting off you know what, and do it very slowly. Let it hurt him, let him suffer like the gentle and pure children whose lives he destroyed. That is the pain I want him to feel."
By Aviva Lori
Haaretz - November 29, 2007
"I wanted to murder him. Or to kidnap him and beat him to within an inch of his life and then dump him somewhere. Or to drag him to the American embassy and then send him back to the United States." The speaker is T., who says he is one of the victims of Avrohom Mondrowitz, the alleged pedophile from Brooklyn who styles himself a rabbi and psychologist, and whose misdeeds were described recently in these pages ("In the basement, behind a closed door," Haaretz Magazine, November 16). T. says that last year he paid someone who came to Israel to come up with an operative plan to assault Mondrowitz. "I sent someone to Israel. An American guy who came on one of the educational programs for American Jews, someone who is not afraid of anything. He did not work alone. He has connections with a few guys in Israel, who were going to do the actual deed."
Then why didn't it happen?
T.: "Mondrowitz was very careful and never went into the street alone. He knows that someone will finish him off one day. Someone who will decide that he doesn't care if he spends the next 50 years in jail. The person I sent on the mission is still in Israel. He sat for four months, preparing a plan - how and where. We found out everything about him, where he lives and how he behaves, but it is very hard to get close to him without anyone seeing, so after four months the guy said he was giving it up."
Would you really send someone to assassinate him?
"If it could be done without being caught, I would definitely do it. I don't want to, but all I know is this: If the law didn't manage to bring him to justice after so many years, the feeling is that no one cares. He isn't just some crook who robbed a store. He destroyed people's lives. I am still going to therapy twice a month. I have problems. I don't trust anyone, don't believe anyone, I am a very suspicious person. I talk to my children about it every week, and it's very hard to tell children not to be friendly with people. In our synagogue there was someone who went over to children and hugged them. Most people thought he was just being sociable, but I went over to him in the middle of the synagogue and gave him a real beating. I said to everyone, 'I am not going to wait around until he does it to one of my kids.'"
T., now 38 and living in New York, was almost 13 when he first met Mondrowitz. Since then he has been haunted by nightmares. "My life today does not exactly follow some 'golden way,'" he says in the Hebrew he learned during his stay in Israel. "I have no doubt that it started there, in that disastrous meeting with Mondrowitz. For some reason, I never told anyone the whole truth."
T.'s parents, Holocaust survivors, settled in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section. After his bar mitzvah he was to enter the Bais Yisroel yeshiva run by the Gur (Gerer) Hasidic sect in Borough Park, Brooklyn. To prepare him for yeshiva life, his parents sent him to a summer camp run by the Gur Hasidim in the Catskills, where he met Mondrowitz for the first time. "He would show up in his car, an Oldsmobile that was as heavy as a Merkava tank. That summer he started to buy me things. He asked me what I liked. I still have a set of books he bought me. He would take me to a pizzeria. I asked him if that was all right, if I was allowed to leave the camp, and he said, 'Yes, of course, I will get you permission.'"
T. doesn't recall Mondrowitz trying to touch him at camp. But he still remembers vividly what he later saw in the yeshiva. To mark the anniversary of the death of the Admor of Gur (the sect's founder), the students made a torch from wax candles, which they cooked in a large pot in the yeshiva's basement kitchen.
"I went down to the dining room, where the kitchen was," T. relates. "It was a bit dark and no one was there, but suddenly I heard noises. I looked around and then I saw them. A boy from the yeshiva, my age or maybe a year older, was leaning on a table. Mondrowitz was on top of him and both of them had their pants down. I was flabbergasted. It was like a nightmare.
"I ran upstairs, into the classroom, and told the teacher what I saw. Straightaway he went out of the classroom with me, and in the corridor he saw the boy and Mondrowitz coming up the stairs. So he saw that I wasn't talking nonsense." (Years later, T. says, "I found out that the boy never did well in life, that he was mentally ill.") The teacher then took T. to the principal and told him what happened. "I remember the principal shouted at me in Yiddish that I was a boy with a filthy mind. We went back to the classroom as though nothing had happened. At around 4 o'clock, Mondrowitz came and said he wanted to take me to his office, that he had to talk to me. He was an authority figure and I couldn't object. I went to his car, and he stopped at a store on 16th Avenue, took me into the store with him and said that the tzitzit [ritual undergarment worn by Orthodox Jewish males] I was wearing was not Hasidic enough and that I needed a more expensive one, made of wool. My father was poor and bought me a simple tzitzit. Mondrowitz then bought me a Coke and for the first time took me to his home, where he started to explain to me that every person needs a different form of therapy and that some children need to have a good feeling. As he was talking, he stuck one hand into my pants and the other into his pants. If I remember well, his wife was home. I went into shock. He asked me if I felt good. I said no, but he kept on and then he said I was too young, that one day I would find out what was really good for me."
The next day, T. told his teacher what had happened at Mondrowitz's home. The teacher promised to deal with it. "The following day, my father got a letter from the yeshiva saying that I was unsuitable and they should look for a different institution for me."
Before the age of 14, T. was sent to a Gur yeshiva in Israel, but was soon expelled, without any explanation. Maybe because he told his friends what he had seen in Brooklyn: "I discovered that there were six kids in the yeshiva whom Mondrowitz had treated."
After that T. stayed with his sister and with another relative, trying to get accepted to other yeshivas, but to no avail.
T. became a street urchin. He slept in the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, sold pictures that he drew, and lived a hand-to-mouth existence. "The Jerusalem bus station was my home. Sometimes I went into a synagogue to sleep. At the age of 21 I was married. I worked for a solar-heating company, rented a place in Ramat Gan and forsook religion.? After 10 years in Israel, T. was divorced. He returned to the United States, found religion again - "I don't believe in religious people, I believe in God" - remarried and raised a new family.
Road to extradition
Avrohom Mondrowitz, 60, a Gur Hasid, was indicted in the United States on charges of sexual abuse, including sodomy, against hundreds of children, mainly Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), in his neighborhood of Borough Park, Brooklyn, in the early 1980s. The investigation began in 1984, following an anonymous phone call to Patricia Kehoe, a detective in the Brooklyn police sex crimes unit, about Mondrowitz's behavior. But by the time an arrest warrant was issued, Mondrowitz had disappeared. He and his family settled in Jerusalem. He was indicted in 1985, and Israel was asked to extradite him. This was not possible, because at the time the extradition agreement between the two countries did not define sodomy as a felony that mandated extradition. Mondrowitz lived comfortably in his Jerusalem home in the colorful Nahlaot neighborhood, teaching (until he was fired this year), praying three times a day in a local synagogue and, in his leisure time, apparently collecting and watching pedophilic movies and selling fake academic degrees from various universities to all comers.
Last May, local police raided Mondrowitz's home and found four pedophilic films. Two months ago, he was detained and questioned, but released under restrictive conditions. In September, the United States renewed its extradition request after the agreement with Israel was amended at the beginning of this year, so that sodomy is now an extraditable offense. But nothing happened. The police said they were in the midst of an investigation; the Justice Ministry refused to divulge information about its intentions. Mondrowitz continued with his regular routine.
Two weeks ago, on Friday, the day after the article's publication (on Thursday, in the Hebrew version of the Haaretz Magazine), Mondrowitz was arrested for the purpose of extradition. Three days later, he was brought before the vice president of the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, Judge Shimon Fineberg, who extended his remand by a week and wrote that the findings of the investigation "create a reasonable suspicion that [Mondrowitz] is still an active or potential pedophile. The fact that he does not have a police record of sexual abuse in Israel does not render the danger void. It is well known that with offenses such as these, particularly in the Haredi sector, to which the respondent belongs, the victims and their families often do not file complaints with the police owing to their desire to try to solve the problems without involving the police, in order to avert shame in the family. By this I do not find that the respondent committed offenses in Israel, but neither do I find the opposite."
The news of Mondrowitz's arrest was widely reported - more than 70 items appeared all over the world: in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Pravda, The New York Daily News, the news agencies and, of course, in the Jewish press. The reports prompted more people who said they were Mondrowitz's victims to come forward.
One of them is B., the mother of M., an apparent Mondrowitz victim, who committed suicide last year. B. had long agonized over whether to go public. The latest round of reports gave her the impetus she needed. "Before this I didn't know that he had molested so many pure, innocent children," she says.
An Orthodox Jew, B. believes that God took her son in order to alleviate his unbearable pain, which, she says, was inflicted on him after a year of intensive "treatment" by Mondrowitz. Of B.'s three sons, she says two were victimized by Mondrowitz. They were sent to him for therapy when she and her husband were going through a divorce. M. was then nine and a half; G., his brother, was 11.
G., now 38, also takes part in the conversation. He says he was lucky: "He didn't really manage to hurt me, because I ran away. This was in 1981. My parents had just been divorced, and my mother sent me and my younger brother to him for professional help. I remember him as a very impressive person. He smoked a pipe and had a convertible sports car, which attracted a lot of attention. He was cool, you know. The first time I came to him he sat me on his knees and started to kiss me on the lips and fondle me in all kinds of places. I jumped up in a fright and escaped. He told me that if I told anyone, he would hurt me."
In what way?
G.: "I don't know, but he had a terrible look in his eyes and I was really scared."
Did you understand that what he did was wrong?
"I knew that I had a teacher in school who did [bad] things to me, so I knew it was wrong."
G. did not show up for the next session with Mondrowitz. He walked around the building for an hour, but did not go in. Two weeks later, he informed his mother that he would not go again. "We had a big fight. She wanted to know why. I only told her that I didn't like him. She was deeply involved in the divorce and didn?t press the issue."
His younger brother, M., continued to see Mondrowitz. It was not until 10 years later that he disclosed that the man had abused and raped him.
In 1988, during a visit to Jerusalem, G. and his brother saw Mondrowitz at the Western Wall. "I ran to him and started to hit him," G. recalls. "My brother restrained me and separated us. I shouted that this man is an animal who has to be arrested, but in the meantime he ran off."
G. has the names of eight additional people who say they were victims, who contacted him after the article appeared. They decided to urge the U.S. authorities to pressure Israel to extradite Mondrowitz.
"[My brother] M. married but wasn't able to have sexual relations with his wife," G. says. "He got divorced and became a homosexual."
Because of what Mondrowitz did?
"Obviously. Two weeks before his death, he told my father: 'I am not sure that even if Mondrowitz is brought to trial it will ease my suffering and reduce the pain.' We knew that something was not right with him - he did not behave normally. He became sentimental in his relations with people.
He had a problem with religion: He didn't understand how someone could teach religion and do things like that. He couldn't abide the hypocrisy. He used drugs and sank into even more pain. The drugs helped him cope. One day last year he took pills and didn't wake up again. He died in his sleep."
M. was 35 at the time of his death. His mother cannot forgive herself for having sent him to Mondrowitz.
"He was so popular, everyone recommended him," B. relates. "I heard him on his radio program and was impressed by the advice he gave. I was sure that I was helping my children. You don't expect a rabbi to do things like that. Now it turns out he was not a rabbi at all, that everything he told about himself was untrue. That man persuaded me to leave my children alone with him. That way, he said, he could help them more. But one day M. broke down and told me everything. I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. I hugged him and we both sat down and cried and cried without end. I told him, 'Don't ever dare look at that man again, ever. I will see to it that he pays for what he did.' But by the time I figured out what to do, he had already escaped to Israel."
Did you feel that something was amiss with M.?
B.: "I am sure that if I had felt that, I would have done something, but [Mondrowitz] hypnotized him. Afterward I found out that he would convince the children that each of them was unique and special, and that he loved them more than anything in the world, even more than their parents did. He would fill their head with all kinds of crazy things that influence children of that age. He would buy them things and seduce them."
B. says she does not understand why the other rabbis kept silent and did nothing. "It is very hard for me to understand why they protected him. Now I understand that there were too many rabbis who did the same thing. It destroyed the children; even those who remained alive are not really living. It is hard for me to believe that he didn't do it to children in Israel, too, because it's a sickness. Why didn't the police arrest him long ago? Never in my life have I had such a strong urge to kill someone as with this man. The only way to deal with him is by cutting off you know what, and do it very slowly. Let it hurt him, let him suffer like the gentle and pure children whose lives he destroyed. That is the pain I want him to feel."
_________________________________________________________________________________
Court rules to extradite alleged U.S. serial molester Mondrowitz
By Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz - February 10, 2008
By Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz - February 10, 2008
Alleged child molester Avrohom Mondrowitz can be extradited to the United States, the Jerusalem District Court ruled on Sunday.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Ger Hassidic sect in Brooklyn who posed as a rabbi and psychologist specializing in treating troubled children, fled to Israel in 1984 as New York law enforcement authorities were preparing to arrest him.
In 1985 he was charged with sodomy and other sex crimes against five minors, aged 9 to 15, from the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn. The case first came to light after a report in Haaretz Magazine (November 17, 2007).
The U.S. Justice Department twice applied for his extradition, but legal hurdles prevented this until now. The first extradition request was denied because at the time, 22 years ago, sodomy was not an extraditable offense under the Israeli American extradition treaty.
The treaty was amended in January 2007, making it possible to extradite anyone who has been charged with a crime that carries more than a one-year prison sentence.
The U.S. submitted a second extradition request in September 2007, and two months later Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem.
In Sunday's court decision, Judge Nava Ben Or ruled that since legal reasons prevented bringing Mondrowitz to justice, the statute of limitations on the crime with which he was charged stopped running the moment Mondrowitz arrived in Israel.
With the statute of limitations still valid, she ruled, he can be extradited to the U.S.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Ger Hassidic sect in Brooklyn who posed as a rabbi and psychologist specializing in treating troubled children, fled to Israel in 1984 as New York law enforcement authorities were preparing to arrest him.In 1985 he was charged with sodomy and other sex crimes against five minors, aged 9 to 15, from the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn. The case first came to light after a report in Haaretz Magazine (November 17, 2007).
The U.S. Justice Department twice applied for his extradition, but legal hurdles prevented this until now. The first extradition request was denied because at the time, 22 years ago, sodomy was not an extraditable offense under the Israeli American extradition treaty.
The treaty was amended in January 2007, making it possible to extradite anyone who has been charged with a crime that carries more than a one-year prison sentence.
The U.S. submitted a second extradition request in September 2007, and two months later Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem.
In Sunday's court decision, Judge Nava Ben Or ruled that since legal reasons prevented bringing Mondrowitz to justice, the statute of limitations on the crime with which he was charged stopped running the moment Mondrowitz arrived in Israel.
With the statute of limitations still valid, she ruled, he can be extradited to the U.S.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Extradition of US Orthodox Jew wanted for sexual attacks approved
By Associated Press - Feb. 10, 2008
An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the US of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago, the Justice Ministry said.
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order, but Mondrowitz has the right to appeal.
Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite Mondrowitz, who could appeal to the Supreme Court against Sunday's ruling.
By Associated Press - Feb. 10, 2008
An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the US of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago, the Justice Ministry said.
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order, but Mondrowitz has the right to appeal.
Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite Mondrowitz, who could appeal to the Supreme Court against Sunday's ruling.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Court rules alleged U.S. pedophile Mondrowitz must stay in custody
By Haaretz Service
Haaretz - February 10, 2008
The Jerusalem District Court ruled on Monday that Avrohom Mondrowitz, an ultra-Orthodox man who fled the United States for Israel two decades ago to avoid sexual abuse charges, must remain in custody until the end of legal proceedings against him.
The United States seeks the extradition of Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect, and the court ruling stemmed from the suspicion he may attempt to escape Israel before his extradition.
Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem in November of last year for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed psychology clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Two months ago, the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled Brooklyn for Israel, said Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen.
The renewed U.S. request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to Israel's State Prosecutor's Office. Before the change that took effect last January, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Alleged child molester can be extradited
JTA - February 10, 2008
An alleged child molester who fled to Israel from the United States two decades ago can be extradited.
A Jerusalem court made the ruling Sunday in the case of Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a Ger Chasid from Brooklyn who was arrested last November after a second extradition request was made two months earlier.
Mondrowitz has the right to appeal the extradition ruling to Israel's Supreme Court.
He fled the United States as police in New York were close to arresting him on charges of sexually abusing children at his unlicensed private home clinic, The Associated Press reported.
The original extradition request from 1985 was rejected because at the time, sodomy was not an extraditable offense under the extradition treaty between Israel and America, Ha'aretz reported. The treaty has since been amended to include all crimes whose imprisonment is more than one year.
JTA - February 10, 2008
An alleged child molester who fled to Israel from the United States two decades ago can be extradited.
A Jerusalem court made the ruling Sunday in the case of Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a Ger Chasid from Brooklyn who was arrested last November after a second extradition request was made two months earlier.
Mondrowitz has the right to appeal the extradition ruling to Israel's Supreme Court.
He fled the United States as police in New York were close to arresting him on charges of sexually abusing children at his unlicensed private home clinic, The Associated Press reported.
The original extradition request from 1985 was rejected because at the time, sodomy was not an extraditable offense under the extradition treaty between Israel and America, Ha'aretz reported. The treaty has since been amended to include all crimes whose imprisonment is more than one year.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Israeli court OKs extradition of Brooklyn man wanted in sex case
The Associated Press (Newsday) - February 10, 2008
JERUSALEM - An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the U.S. of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago at his New York home, the Justice Ministry said.
The 60-year-old man, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November after being accused of abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Israeli Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order but the man has the right to appeal.
Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite the man, who could appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court against Sunday's ruling.
Last September, the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after the man fled Brooklyn for Israel.
The renewed U.S. request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year's imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Before the change, which took effect a year ago, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
The Associated Press (Newsday) - February 10, 2008
JERUSALEM - An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the U.S. of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago at his New York home, the Justice Ministry said.
The 60-year-old man, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November after being accused of abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Israeli Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order but the man has the right to appeal.
Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite the man, who could appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court against Sunday's ruling.
Last September, the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after the man fled Brooklyn for Israel.
The renewed U.S. request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year's imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Before the change, which took effect a year ago, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
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Israel can extradite alleged N.Y. serial molester
By Ofra Edelman
Haaretz - February 11, 2008
Alleged child molester Avrohom Mondrowitz can be extradited to the United States, the Jerusalem District Court ruled yesterday.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Ger Hassidic sect in Brooklyn who posed as a rabbi and psychologist specializing in treating troubled children, fled to Israel in 1984 as New York law enforcement authorities were preparing to arrest him.
In 1985 he was charged with sodomy and other sex crimes against five minors, aged 9 to 15, from the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn. The case first came to light after a report in Haaretz Magazine (Nov. 17, 2007).
The U.S. Justice Department twice applied for his extradition, but legal hurdles prevented this until now. The first extradition request was denied because at the time, 22 years ago, sodomy was not an extraditable offense under the Israeli-American extradition treaty.
The treaty was amended in January 2007, making it possible to extradite anyone who has been charged with a crime that carries more than a one-year prison sentence.
The U.S. submitted a second extradition request in September 2007, and two months later Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem.
In yesterday's court decision, Judge Nava Ben Or ruled that since legal reasons prevented bringing Mondrowitz to justice, the statute of limitations on the crime with which he was charged stopped running the moment Mondrowitz arrived in Israel. With the statute of limitations still valid, she ruled, he can be extradited to the U.S.
By Ofra Edelman
Haaretz - February 11, 2008
Alleged child molester Avrohom Mondrowitz can be extradited to the United States, the Jerusalem District Court ruled yesterday.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Ger Hassidic sect in Brooklyn who posed as a rabbi and psychologist specializing in treating troubled children, fled to Israel in 1984 as New York law enforcement authorities were preparing to arrest him.
In 1985 he was charged with sodomy and other sex crimes against five minors, aged 9 to 15, from the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn. The case first came to light after a report in Haaretz Magazine (Nov. 17, 2007).
The U.S. Justice Department twice applied for his extradition, but legal hurdles prevented this until now. The first extradition request was denied because at the time, 22 years ago, sodomy was not an extraditable offense under the Israeli-American extradition treaty.
The treaty was amended in January 2007, making it possible to extradite anyone who has been charged with a crime that carries more than a one-year prison sentence.
The U.S. submitted a second extradition request in September 2007, and two months later Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem.
In yesterday's court decision, Judge Nava Ben Or ruled that since legal reasons prevented bringing Mondrowitz to justice, the statute of limitations on the crime with which he was charged stopped running the moment Mondrowitz arrived in Israel. With the statute of limitations still valid, she ruled, he can be extradited to the U.S.
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Court okays extradition of haredi suspected of pedophilia
Associate Press - February 11, 2008
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn home during the 80s.
An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the US of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago, the Justice Ministry said.
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Israeli Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order, but Mondrowitz has the right to appeal. Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite Mondrowitz, who could appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court against Sunday's ruling.
Last September, the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled Brooklyn for Israel.
The renewed US request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Before the change that took effect a year ago, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
Associate Press - February 11, 2008
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn home during the 80s.
An Israeli court on Sunday approved extradition to the US of an American Orthodox Jew wanted on suspicion of multiple sexual attacks two decades ago, the Justice Ministry said.
Abraham Mondrowitz, 60, a member of the Gur Hasidic Jewish sect, was arrested in Jerusalem in November for allegedly abusing dozens of children at his unlicensed private clinic at his Brooklyn, New York home during the 1980s. He fled to Israel in 1985 as police were investigating charges against him.
Israeli Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said the Jerusalem District Court approved the extradition order, but Mondrowitz has the right to appeal. Court spokeswoman Tal Rosner said the state would make the final decision about whether to extradite Mondrowitz, who could appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court against Sunday's ruling.
Last September, the United States resubmitted an extradition request first made in 1985, months after Mondrowitz fled Brooklyn for Israel.
The renewed US request came after Israel and the United States amended their extradition treaty to include all crimes whose punishment is more than one year imprisonment, according to the Israeli state prosecutor's office. Before the change that took effect a year ago, the extradition treaty between Israel and the United States did not include sodomy.
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Brooklyn rabbi accused of sexual abuse loses extradition battle
BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and DAVE GOLDINER in New York
BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Jerusalem and DAVE GOLDINER in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS - Monday, February 11th 2008,
An Israeli judge ruled Sunday that a disgraced Brooklyn rabbi accused of sexually abusing children more than two decades ago can be extradited to the U.S.Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, who fled to the Jewish state in 1984 to avoid prosecution, could now be headed back to Brooklyn within a matter of months to face sodomy and sex abuse charges."It's good news," said Michael Lesher, who represents several of the rabbi's alleged victims. "This order means he'll be on the way back to face trial."
Mondrowitz, 60, a married father of seven, could still appeal the decision to the Israeli Supreme Court, a move that could take nearly a year to resolve.
"There's still some work to be done," said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. "We look forward to bringing him to justice in Brooklyn."
Mondrowitz was arrested last year after the U.S. and Israel agreed to broaden their extradition pact.
The rabbi argued that the statute of limitations had run out on his alleged crimes.
But Judge Nava Ben-Or ruled Mondrowitz should not benefit from fleeing prosecution.
"When someone is escaping justice it is only fair and reasonable that this period of time is not taken into account," said Gal Levertov, an Israeli Justice Department official.
Dressed in a long black coat and yarmulke, the shackled Mondrowitz sat impassively as the judge read his decision.
His wife and children sat behind him, but were prevented by two guards from touching or talking to him.
"I'm very proud of my kids. I'm always proud of my kids," Mondrowitz said to his family as he was led away.
"We're proud of you, too," one of his sons cried out.
Mondrowitz was once a popular child psychologist and youth counselor in Borough Park, where he was especially well-known among Hasidic Jews.
He fled to Israel after several boys filed horrific complaints claiming he sodomized them after befriending them or taking them on outings to amusement parks and movies.
One of Mondrowitz's victims told Lesher he was pleased that the rabbi is one step closer to facing trial for his alleged crimes.
"It's been a long time to see any sort of justice," Lesher said. "We feel we are tangibly closer now."
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Armed With New Treaty, Israeli Judge Orders `Rabbi' Back to Brooklyn
After 23 Years Abroad, Alleged Pedophile To Be Prosecuted
by Ryan Thompson
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - February 11, 2008
JERUSALEM — After two decades of asylum in Israel, the infamous Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz appears to be headed home — where he will be prosecuted for sex abuse and sodomy of children. On Sunday, a judge in Jerusalem ordered the Hasidic man who claimed to be a rabbi to be extradited back to Brooklyn, where he will face sex abuse and sodomy charges that were filed against him in 1984. Eluding police, Mondrowitz and his family fled to Israel 23 years ago where they have lived outside the reach of U.S. authorities ever since.
Due to a new amendment in an international treaty, Mondrowitz should soon be returned home so that he can finally be prosecuted for his alleged sodomy of several children.
"We are gratified by the ruling, and we will continue to work hard to bring Mondrowitz to trial in Brooklyn," said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Kings County District Attorney's Office.
As reported in the Jan. 9 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mondrowitz's charged offenses were not extraditable until last year, when the U.S. and Israel amended their extradition treaty to include sodomy as an extraditable offense. Last month, Stefan Colmer, a 31-year-old Hasidic Jew from Midwood, was extradited from Israel back to Brooklyn, where he was immediately arraigned on sodomy charges, making him the first defendant in the country to be extradited under the new amendment to the treaty.
Colmer, perhaps aware of Mondrowitz's seemingly successful escape to Israel, also took off abroad soon after he realized that he was under investigation for allegedly performing oral sex on two 13-year-old boys in 2006. Charged with 35 counts of sex crimes, Colmer faces more than 50 years in prison if convicted and is due back in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Feb. 25.
Mondrowitz's alleged crimes are far more serious, having had numerous children between the ages of 9 and 15 accuse him of sodomizing them in the 1980s. The now 60-year-old father of seven was once a popular youth counselor who ran an unlicensed psychology clinic at his Borough Park home, where some of the sex crimes are alleged to have occurred.
When police went to his house with an arrest warrant in 1984, Mondowitz was gone, and the police posted "Wanted" posters around the neighborhood, which depicted the bearded man with spectacles.
After learning that Mondrowitz had fled to Israel, the U.S. sought his extradition but was ultimately denied, because the 1962 Israeli-American treaty did not include sodomy as an extraditable offense.
With the treaty amended last January to include sodomy and any criminal offense that carries a prison sentence of more than one year, the U.S. sought the extradition of Mondrowitz again last summer. Upon doing so, Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem in November and has been held in custody by Israeli authorities ever since.
Dressed in a long black overcoat and yarmulke, Mondrowitz stood in shackles in a Jerusalem courtroom over the weekend. He argued that the U.S. statute of limitations had run out on his alleged sex crimes and that he therefore should not be returned home. However, the statute's time-limitations toll as a result of his escaping prosecution, and therefore, the time abroad shall not be considered. It is possible that Mondrowitz may still file an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, which could delay his extradition by several months possibly. At this time, it is unknown when the purported pedophile will be returning home.
After 23 Years Abroad, Alleged Pedophile To Be Prosecuted
by Ryan Thompson
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - February 11, 2008
JERUSALEM — After two decades of asylum in Israel, the infamous Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz appears to be headed home — where he will be prosecuted for sex abuse and sodomy of children. On Sunday, a judge in Jerusalem ordered the Hasidic man who claimed to be a rabbi to be extradited back to Brooklyn, where he will face sex abuse and sodomy charges that were filed against him in 1984. Eluding police, Mondrowitz and his family fled to Israel 23 years ago where they have lived outside the reach of U.S. authorities ever since.
Due to a new amendment in an international treaty, Mondrowitz should soon be returned home so that he can finally be prosecuted for his alleged sodomy of several children.
"We are gratified by the ruling, and we will continue to work hard to bring Mondrowitz to trial in Brooklyn," said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Kings County District Attorney's Office.
As reported in the Jan. 9 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mondrowitz's charged offenses were not extraditable until last year, when the U.S. and Israel amended their extradition treaty to include sodomy as an extraditable offense. Last month, Stefan Colmer, a 31-year-old Hasidic Jew from Midwood, was extradited from Israel back to Brooklyn, where he was immediately arraigned on sodomy charges, making him the first defendant in the country to be extradited under the new amendment to the treaty.
Colmer, perhaps aware of Mondrowitz's seemingly successful escape to Israel, also took off abroad soon after he realized that he was under investigation for allegedly performing oral sex on two 13-year-old boys in 2006. Charged with 35 counts of sex crimes, Colmer faces more than 50 years in prison if convicted and is due back in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Feb. 25.
Mondrowitz's alleged crimes are far more serious, having had numerous children between the ages of 9 and 15 accuse him of sodomizing them in the 1980s. The now 60-year-old father of seven was once a popular youth counselor who ran an unlicensed psychology clinic at his Borough Park home, where some of the sex crimes are alleged to have occurred.
When police went to his house with an arrest warrant in 1984, Mondowitz was gone, and the police posted "Wanted" posters around the neighborhood, which depicted the bearded man with spectacles.
After learning that Mondrowitz had fled to Israel, the U.S. sought his extradition but was ultimately denied, because the 1962 Israeli-American treaty did not include sodomy as an extraditable offense.
With the treaty amended last January to include sodomy and any criminal offense that carries a prison sentence of more than one year, the U.S. sought the extradition of Mondrowitz again last summer. Upon doing so, Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem in November and has been held in custody by Israeli authorities ever since.
Dressed in a long black overcoat and yarmulke, Mondrowitz stood in shackles in a Jerusalem courtroom over the weekend. He argued that the U.S. statute of limitations had run out on his alleged sex crimes and that he therefore should not be returned home. However, the statute's time-limitations toll as a result of his escaping prosecution, and therefore, the time abroad shall not be considered. It is possible that Mondrowitz may still file an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, which could delay his extradition by several months possibly. At this time, it is unknown when the purported pedophile will be returning home.
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Brooklyn Prosecutor's Role In Abuse Case Is Examined
By Ray Rivera
New York Times - June 29, 2012
For years, Avrohom Mondrowitz
counseled children out of his home in the Borough Park neighborhood of
Brooklyn. He was host of a call-in radio show popular among
ultra-Orthodox Jewish listeners, claiming to be a rabbi and
psychologist. But law enforcement officials say Mr. Mondrowitz, who fled to Israel in 1984 to avoid arrest, was also something else: "a compulsive pedophile."
The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, has repeatedly said
that since taking office in 1990, he has vigorously tried to extradite
Mr. Mondrowitz.
Mr. Hynes has said his office was instrumental in bringing about a
change in a treaty between the United States and Israel in 2007 that had
thwarted early extradition efforts.
But newly
disclosed documents from Mr. Hynes's office cast doubts on his accounts
of his role in the case, suggesting that for many years, the office
paid little attention to it.
Michael Lesher, a writer and lawyer who represents several of Mr. Mondrowitz's
accusers, obtained 103 pages of files on the case from the district
attorney's office after a protracted court battle to secure them under
the state's Freedom of Information Law.
"There
isn't a single e-mail, a single letter, a single memo, either
originating from the D.A.'s office or addressed to it, that so much as
mentions any attempt by the D.A. to seek a change in the extradition
treaty," Mr. Lesher said. "It's just inconceivable that such important
negotiation on such a detailed issue could have taken place and not left
a trace in the documentary record."
Mr. Hynes
has long been criticized by advocacy groups representing victims of
child sexual abuse, who claimed that he was too accommodating of
politically influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis, many of whom teach
that such crimes should be handled by rabbinical authorities.
Scrutiny of his office intensified last month after articles in The
New York Times raised questions about his handling of sexual abuse cases
among the ultra-Orthodox.
Mr. Hynes has
defended his record, but after the articles were published, he promised
to push for legislation making it mandatory for rabbis to report abuse.
He also set up a task force to crack down on witness intimidation, which
has stymied many sexual abuse cases in the community.
The Mondrowitz case has long been one of the most notorious child sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn.
Mr. Mondrowitz
was charged with molesting five boys, but Amy Neustein, editor of the
book "Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals,"
which includes a history of the case, said she believed he had at least
100 victims.
Mr. Mondrowitz, now 64, has denied the charges.
The first efforts to extradite Mr. Mondrowitz,
made in the mid-1980s by Mr. Hynes's predecessor as district attorney,
Elizabeth Holtzman, failed after the Israeli authorities ruled that the
extradition treaty did not cover sodomy.
After the treaty was amended in 2007, an Israeli court ordered Mr. Mondrowitz
to be returned to Brooklyn, but the Israel Supreme Court reversed the
decision in 2010. In its ruling, the court said the long delay in
amending the treaty had created a "substantive violation" to Mr. Mondrowitz's
right to a fair trial, according to a United States Justice Department
summary of the decision. The court said that the treaty could have been
changed much earlier.
Over the years, Mr. Hynes has often said in interviews that he has placed a priority on pursuing Mr. Mondrowitz.
In 2009, he said on the syndicated radio show "Talkline with Zev
Brenner" that his office, led by Rhonnie Jaus, the chief of his sex
crimes bureau, "convinced the State Department to bring the case to the
Israeli government to change the extradition treaty."
Mr. Hynes reiterated his stance in an e-mail to The Times this week. A
spokeswoman for the State Department said information to confirm Mr.
Hynes's assertions was not readily available and would have to be
researched.
Federal officials, not local ones,
negotiate extradition treaties, but the new documents obtained by Mr.
Lesher provide no evidence that Ms. Jaus or anyone in the office tried
to lobby American or Israeli authorities to change the extradition
rules.
In an interview this week, Ms. Jaus said
that the documents released to Mr. Lesher did not show the full scope
of the office's efforts, noting that more than 280 pages in the file
were withheld. The office said in a letter to Mr. Lesher that the pages
that were withheld consisted mainly of internal agency documents, like
memos between staff members.
Ms. Jaus, who has
been chief of sex crimes since 1992, said she did not get involved in
the case until 2000, when the State Department alerted her that Mr. Mondrowitz was trying to return to the United States. Hopes of arresting him ended when he failed to arrive, she said.
Asked what she did to lobby for treaty changes, she said her office
made occasional calls to the Justice Department, mainly to check on the
status of negotiations over the treaty. The first call was in 2000 to
review the history of the case, she said, followed by another in 2003
and two calls in 2006.
"If you can't extradite
him because of an existing treaty, what can you do?" she said. "But our
position was very well known: We always wanted to extradite this
person."
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Please note: The awareness center does NOT condones any sort of violence committed against alleged and convicted sex offenders or any other individual(s).
Avrohom Mondrowitz, a notorious fake rabbi and child psychologist who fled US arrest warrants for child molestation in 1984, was attacked and beaten by an unknown vigilante assailant last week in Jerusalem, according to cellphone video footage of the incident released exclusively to The Algemeiner.
"Isaac," a 22-year old American studying in Jerusalem who recorded the scene, asked that his full name not be used and that his voice be altered in the footage.
Isaac, who recognized Mondrowitz from a newspaper report last year in which he was labeled the "Bin Laden of pedophiles," said he first called out to him by name. "He stopped, turned around and responded 'yes' with a heavy New York accent," Isaac said.
The video begins shortly thereafter with Issac following from a distance, then, loudly, calling Mondrowitz a "molester," and telling passersby that Mondrowitz "molested 100 kids in New York." At that point, an unknown vigilante, who appears to be at least six feet tall and well-built, also apparently recognizing Mondrowitz, grabbed the hat from the fake shrink's head, beat him with it, then let him escape, briefly, before racing after him, catching up to him, and throwing Mondrowitz to the ground.
The cameraman said he did not know the identity of the assailant nor was he, personally, someone who typically resorted to violence, but the frustrating circumstances surrounding Mondrowitz's continued freedom from hundreds of accusers made this an occasion where "vigilante justice could be justified."
Isaac, originally from the New York area, said that he was neither a victim of child abuse nor an activist, but knew many people who had suffered abuse and felt "someone has to do something," and that he had to "speak up."
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