Says Community Needs To Learn From Catholic Church Scandal
By AMI EDEN
FORWARD - December 7, 2002
"Perhaps in the outside world there might be an exaggerated tendency to launch a witch hunt, to fire people and prosecute immediately," said Berman, whose predecessors at the Jewish Center include Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University, and Rabbi J.J. Schachter, dean of a Modern Orthodox think tank in Brookline, Mass. "But in the Orthodox world we have the opposite tendency: to circle the wagons and deny wrongdoing. The concern for the reputation of the teacher or school is given greater weight than the child's words."
To hammer home his point, Berman told the story of a pre-teen child who claimed he had been molested by a rabbi at summer camp. According to Berman, even though the rabbi had been the subject of previous complaints, the camp rejected the allegation, and a teacher at the child's school told the student "to stop making up stories, to forget about it and to move on." The family was ostracized, Berman said, and had trouble enrolling the child in another school.
Rabbi Steven Dworken |
Rabbi Steven Dworken, executive vice president of the Modern Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, argued that Orthodox sensitivity to sex abuse has greatly improved since the Lanner scandal became public almost two years ago. He cited one Orthodox school that, when faced with a credible complaint just a few months ago, immediately fired the teacher, contacted law enforcement authorities and supplied the student in question with psychological counseling.
Unfortunately it takes such a scandal to sensitize people."
Rabbi Avi Shafran |
Meanwhile, Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, a leading ultra-Orthodox group, said leaders of his community have no tolerance for sex abuse, and that those who commit such acts are blackballed from holding educational positions.
Rabbi Yosef Blau |
But Rabbi Yosef Blau, a religious adviser to students at Yeshiva University and harsh critic of the O.U.'s handling of the complaints against Lanner, argued that in both the Modern Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox worlds, organizations still do not adequately respond to sex abuse complaints. He acknowledged, however, that some progress has been made, with several prominent rabbis, including the O.U.'s new professional head, Rabbi Zvi Hersh Weinreb, instructing followers to bring sex abuse complaints to law enforcement agencies.
Many rabbis, especially older ones, simply find it hard to believe that any of their colleagues would sexually abuse children, said Blau, who sat on a three-person rabbinical court that decided not to take severe action against Lanner in 1989. But, Blau said, after hearing additional complaints and learning more about sexual abuse, he realized that he had made a mistake in not pushing for Lanner to be barred from working with young people. Blau said that even when rabbis are dismissed or leave their job under suspicion, they often manage to find educational work in another city. Blau said he is strongly in favor of Berman's call for the creation of a "national registry" for schools, camps and youth groups to check before hiring staffers.
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