Clergy as Mandated Reporters

Clergy as Mandated Reporters 
(© 2003) By Vicki Polin, MA, ATR-BC, LCPC


The following testimony was presented to the Maryland Senate Committee on SB412 (Feb. 25, 2003)


I wanted to thank you for giving The Awareness Center the opportunity to speak on this important topic today.

I'll begin by saying being Jewish means that I ask a lot of questions, and answer questions with questions. Bearing that in mind let me start off by asking: "Why are we REALLY here today?"

Answer: Children in Maryland are being abused and neglected.

We are here because the current systems within our churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are NOT working. When children disclose abuse, they are NOT being protected. When it comes to OUR children's safety, our religious leaders are FAILING.

We have all heard the news reports. Various news media groups across our nation are definitely keeping busy. They have told us loud and clear, over and over again that religious court systems have been turning their backs on our children, not just recently, but FOR GENERATIONS.

We already know the problems. So if those of us in this room right now, don't work to change things today, it is we who are allowing more children to be abused and neglected; we are allowing more children to be told to keep silent. Things MUST change. OUR CHILDREN ARE SUFFERING.

Dealing with child abuse is never easy. What do you do when you hear that a friend of yours has been named as the alleged offender in a sexual abuse case? What do you do when you hear the allegations that a colleague or family member is molesting a child? The natural reaction is to slip into denial. No one wants to believe that someone they know, and possibly trusted, is a sex offender. But it is for exactly this reason we are here today, and have to change things. WE MUST make our clergy members mandated by law to report when they SUSPECT a child is at risk of harm. We can't be judge and jury to people we know and care for.

All we have to do is log on to our computers and go to The Awareness Center's web page "Clergy Abuse: Rabbis, Cantors and Other Trusted Officials".  You will find about fifty cases of rabbis, teachers, camp-counselors, scout leaders, etc., who had articles written about them in the news media. All of these individuals have been accused and some convicted of child molestation. Most of the alleged victims of these alleged offenders went to their rabbis for help. Too many were ignored and/or told to keep silent. Often the victims and victims' families were intimidated by their leaders if they went to State officials.

Just look at the case of Rabbi Baruch Lanner, the case of the kosher butcher in Chicago, or the case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. All three men were known in the communities as being problematic, as having problems with sexual impulse control. Yet these men were allowed to continue to harm children. All three men were well protected by their local religious leaders in their respected communities. All of these men's victims were left unprotected and told to be silent.


Rabbi Baruch Lanner
Baruch Lanner was regarded as one of the most brilliant, dynamic and charismatic educators in Jewish life in today's world. He was the director of regions of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, an arm of the Orthodox Union. Rabbi Lanner worked with and supervised teenagers for more than thirty years. Lanner was also a principal and teacher at religious high schools. For many years he led a highly successful six-week summer program in Israel offering Bible study to up to 300 American boys. His criminal sexual behavior was known not only all over the United States, but also on an international level.

Even though Rabbi Lanner is credited with bringing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children closer to Judaism, reports of his criminal behavior have been circulating since the 1970's. Although Baruch Lanner was convicted of child molestation, he is sitting at home instead of in prison awaiting his appeal. One reason stated by the Asbury Park Press (October 9, 2002) is "he fears he may become a victim of sexual abuse by fellow inmates."


The Kosher Butcher
Before I start to tell you about this case. I want you to know this is a story that could easily have happened in Rockville, Baltimore, or any town in the State of Maryland. The offender could have been Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist, or from any other religious group.

The kosher butcher is a story of a man who was allegedly allowed to molest children for over thirty years. It's a well-known case in the Jewish community of Chicago. The only written description of this case is an article in the Chicago Jewish News, dated January 28, 2000.

After this story broke, the editor of the paper, and the two sisters who broke the story were met with hate from members in the community. It was one of those deep dark secrets no one wanted to be made public.

There were never any criminal charges brought up against the butcher, even though many religious leaders were aware of the criminal behavior of this sexual predator. The religious leaders were NOT mandated reporters. Needless to say the kosher butcher was allowed to continue to find more victims, and he did.

There's more to this story then a pedophile being enabled by his community to continue his or her molesting career. There was a child who grew up in the same apartment building as the butcher. When this child became an adult he took on similar criminal sexual behaviors to his neighbor the butcher.

Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, was the son of a rabbi. He went to school and became a clinical psychologist. He moved to New York and set up his practice. He also mimicked the behavior of his neighbor, that same butcher. With the community's hush-up of the butcher's acts, there is no evidence that Rabbi Mondrowitz was abused by him." But there is plenty of information about Rabbi Mondrowitz's criminal sexual behavior, that would make anyone who understands the dynamics of those who offend, extremely curious about his history.


Rabbi Ephraim Bryks
Rabbi Ephraim Bryks is originally from Denver, Colorado. In this case, accusations about his inappropriate behavior with children started surfacing in the 1980's. These accusations also included making sexual advancements to women in his congregation. When his alleged victims disclosed their experiences to a rabbinic leader in their community, they were basically told to keep silent. The rabbi advised them not to go to the police or child family services. He told them to deal with the allegations internally with the synagogue board. The children were not offered psychotherapy to help them cope with their alleged victimization. Unfortunately a teenager who didn't have the coping skills to deal with his memories ended up committing suicide.

Over the years Rabbi Ephraim Bryks has left a trail of alleged victims from such far-away places as Winnipeg, Canada. He is currently located in New York City. There are no documented cases or public information regarding any victims in New York, yet he has been let go by schools (one characterized as firing), but the schools will not discuss the matter.

For years alleged victims have been going to rabbinic leaders in their communities looking for guidance. For years rabbinic leaders have found it more important to protect an alleged sexual predator over protecting our children.

Currently 49 year-old Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks continues to run a school in Queens, NY. He is currently a member of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and the Vaad Harabonim (member of the rabbinical committee that makes important decisions within the community) of Queens.


Question: Who decides who sits on a religious court? It is possible that Rabbi Bryks does? He is on the committee in Queens that makes important decisions.

In the secular world, judges disqualify themselves when they are too close to the parties in court hearings. Surgeons usually do not operate on family members. Religious communities in a city or town, are usually pretty small circles--everyone seems to know each other. My question to you is, why should we allow our clergy any leniency when it comes to reporting suspected child abuse or neglect?

For the sake of conserving time, and reducing redundandancy, I'll use the term "rabbi" to represent all clergy, and the term "synagogue" to represent all houses of worship. When using the word "bet din," which translate into rabbinical court, I'll be referring to any entity that investigates and/or prosecutes cases within a religion's court system.

Let's take a step back from child abuse for a moment. Let me ask you a few more questions.

If there is an arson fire at your local synagogue in Olney, Maryland, who would you want to investigate this crime? If you are Jewish, do you call the local rabbinical court (bet din)? Or do you expect the Olney Police and Fire Departments to be informed, put the fire out, and carry out the investigations?

If there's a shooting on your street, who should investigate the crime, your local religious court, or the local Police Department?

So I ask you, when a rabbi, priest, pastor, cleric or any other member of the clergy, SUSPECTS a child is being abused and/or neglected, whom should she or he call? The religious court in Baltimore? Or the State of Maryland's Child Abuse Hot-line?

Before answering that question, I want you to think about something. We all know how difficult it is to prosecute a case when children are involved. We are all aware of how important it is to protect a crime scene to avoid contaminating evidence. Police departments and child protection workers undergo specific training that allows them to minimize contamination of information and maximize the chance of finding out what really happened. Keeping this in mind, does your local religious court have experience in forensic interviewing? Do they know how to do victim-sensitive interviews? Is the clergy member who suspects a child is at risk, trained in collecting evidence? My bet is that your answer to all of these questions would be NO.

The Awareness Center strongly believes that all members of the clergy should be mandated by law to call the Maryland State Child Abuse Hot-line when they SUSPECT a child is in danger. This is not an unusual request. We are asking you to mandate clergy to do what every other citizen in Maryland is mandated to do.

Our teachers, doctors, psychotherapists, childcare workers, medical personnel--are all mandated, by law, to report when they SUSPECT a child is may be being abused or neglected.

According to the law, it is NOT at the discretion of a teacher, therapist, child care worker or doctor, to substantiate the abuse, to decide whether they'd rather investigate it themselves, or to make a judgment call about the authenticity of the allegations or it's motive. The law specifically states that if you are a mandated reporter who SUSPECTS a child may be in danger, you make a phone call. If you don't, you are breaking the law. The Awareness Center asks you to mandate that members of the clergy not be given preferential treatment. We ask that you hold them accountable as every other citizen. Remember that, by definition, clergy are teachers, counselors, and can also be seen as doctors to our souls. It seems almost barbaric that they have been exempt, and are attempting to continue to be. Are the mandated reporting laws in place to protect offenders or to protect children?

In a recent article in the Washington Post, Na'ama Yehuda--a co-director of The Awareness Center--was quoted as saying "I don't believe that pedophilia has a religion." Child abuse is a criminal matter, not a religious one.

There has never been any research done stating that sexual abuse happens more in one religion than another. But we do have resources that indicate that one out of every 3-5 women, and one out of every 5-7 men in the United States have been sexually abused by their eighteenth birthday. Until proven differently, that means that a quarter of all Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian women and about a fifth of all Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian men have been molested in their childhood.

Keeping this in mind, we have a huge problem on our hands, a problem that is just beginning to be addressed in religious circles. In fact, we would most likely not be here today if the news media did not do their job. They heard stories from victims, investigated and found cover-ups. It's sad to say the only salvation these survivors had, was that their victimization was making headline news.


Quote from Former Student of Rabbi Bryks (name withheld upon request):

I don't have to be politically correct, my (and my friends) dealings both directly and indirectly with the Rabbinical Counsel of America (RCA) and the 0rthodox Union (OU) over Rabbi Bryks indicate clearly to me that they are utterly incapable of dealing with allegations of abuse. There are no mechanisms, no understanding of the problem in the structure of any bet din, and frankly no desire to deal with it. Rabbi Billet and Rabbi Weintraub (#2 in OU but as such is also on the RCA board), are both aware of Bryks, who continues to be a member of the RCA, but are in no rush to establish codes of conduct/balances and checks/investigatory mechanisms to deal with misbehaving members.

Although, I've found child "protection" agencies to be anything but that (few resources, political pressures and frankly sloppiness and laziness), I'd still have more faith in them than a private organization paid for by a body that employs the accused. Private organizations are just that, private. It is essential to create paper trails with offenders, secrecy and silence simply protect them.

Quote from Survivor #1 (name withheld upon request):

Back in the 1970's I went to the guidance counselor at my school (Conservative Jewish Day school). I told her about my father's violent temper and showed her the marks on my arms. I just couldn't imagine going back home that night. I was asking for help. She told me to come back later in the day. She had to consult with the school rabbi. When I went back, she told me there was nothing she could do. My bruises wouldn't photograph well enough. There was nothing anyone could do. I had no choice but go back home. No hot-line report was made.

I always wondered what my life would have been like if someone would have referred me and my family to therapy, or if I would have been removed from my home. I wonder if I would have done better in school? No one wanted to listen to me. No one wanted to get involved. As an adult I was having problems with my jaw. I had special x-rays taken and learned that my jaw had been broken in a few places and that by the calcification, it must have happened when I was about 5. My dentist looked bewildered and then explained to me, by the angle of the break. It could only have been caused by a fist.

Quote from Survivor # 2 (name withheld upon request):

"I am from a Reform background. For many years I felt no connection with Judaism. How could I? In 1986 I went to my rabbi. I really liked him, and thought I could trust him. I went to him in tears; I didn't know what to do. My father was molesting me. I was in high school. When I told him about the abuse, he told me I was making it up. I guess the pregnancy that I aborted was just a figment of my imagination too?"

The Awareness Center is not here to claim that all religious leaders ignore the pain of children, but we are here to say that if our clergy were mandated to report when they SUSPECT a child is at risk, our children would have a chance. Child abuse investigation is the role of law enforcement and child protective services NOT the clergy.

Several years ago teachers, therapists, child care workers, and just about every other individual who has contact with children became mandated reporters. Everyone except our clergy. Our children need you to change this. Please remember this bill is not about protecting the rights of clergy. This bill in front of you is about protecting innocent children from being abused and making sure abusers don't go on abusing.

Think about it--as we speak, at least one more child is being hurt (and with 90% of abused kids being abused by someone they know), most likely becoming a victim of a trusted adult. This is one more child who may gather their courage to go to a member of the clergy for help, instead of those individuals who ARE already mandated to report. If you review all of the cases on The Awareness Center's web page, you may start to wonder if this child, too, will be silenced. Will the alleged offenders be investigated by our criminal justice system? Or should the case be kept quiet, so that the alleged offender and his or her family, and the community not be embarrassed? Remember it is your child, your niece, nephew, cousin, etc, that may be at risk.

One of the biggest arguments I've heard over and over from members of the clergy is that if they became mandated to report when they SUSPECT a child is at risk, no one would talk to them. This is the same argument that was used by teachers, doctors and therapists when they were faced with the same bill. And yet they ARE mandated reporters, and let me tell you a secret: people still see therapists, they still seek medical attention, and children still go to school. Having these professionals become mandated reporters did not force them to close shop--but it did and does protect children, every day. It is a fact that both adults and children still seek advice from, and disclose their deepest secrets to, trusted figures who are mandated reporters.

Unfortunately, there have been too many times that I have been mandated by law to make hot-line reports. Most of the time, I wished that I wasn't required by law to do so. But because the law is in place, I make the reports. Sometimes the cases were founded, and sometimes there was either not enough evidence or no evidence. It doesn't matter. I reported my suspicions and law enforcement did its job.

EXAMPLE #1

I was working with a three year old girl. I got a call from her mother, who was extremely upset. The girl was at a play group and started asking her male playmates to pull down their pants. This behavior is not that unusual, but the girl proceeded to perform oral sex on her friend.

Is this normal child behavior? The answer is NO.

I always explain to clients prior to starting treatment that I am a mandated reporter, and explain what that means. After this mother disclosed the story, I reminded her about the mandated reporting laws. I suspected that someone that this girl has contact with was molesting her, so I called the child abuse hot-line. The police and child protection workers did their job. The girl was not a sex offender. She was NOT taken from her family, because she wasn't being abused in her home. This three-year old girl was sexually reactive. She was acting out what she saw being done to one of her playmates by his father in her neighbor's home.

EXAMPLE #2

The Case of Adam Rubin
Last year, there was an incident involving several 12-13 year old female students at Beth Tfiloh, in Pikesville, MD. They told a staff member at the school that they had been exchanging e-mails with Adam Rubin, who had been a coach at their school. The girls told the teacher that Rubin's messages had become sexual in nature. The school's rabbi's policy is to make hot-line reports when they SUSPECT a child is at risk, so a hot-line report was made.

With the permission of one of the girls' parents, detectives began having conversations with Rubin on the Internet using the girl's account, according to the charging documents. The e-mail messages quickly turned sexual, with Rubin explicitly describing how he wanted to sexually interact with the girl, police said. The next night, he expressed concern about what would happen to him if he was caught having sex with a minor, according to the charging documents. A meeting to consummate the online relationship was arranged. Rubin told the girl to wear something "comfy" but that he liked "tight miniskirts" and "midriff tops," the documents said.

Police arrested Rubin in a sport utility vehicle near the Atrium of the Pikesville shopping center. According to the charging documents, Rubin told police he had received as many as 30 pictures on the Internet from underage girls either nude or in a state of arousal and that he thought he had a "problem -- an addiction to the Internet, talking to young girls on it." If Beth Tfiloh didn't report this case, there could have been more victims.

At the risk of over-stating, please bear with me when I clarify once again that being mandated reporter does not mean that we are mandated to INVESTIGATE allegations of abuse. Rather it means that we are required by law to report a situation IF we have a reason to believe that a child MIGHT be at risk of harm and/or neglect. This is true for ALL cases of suspected child abuse.

The investigation part needs to happen, of course, but it is up to highly trained, highly skilled people who have experience in these matters. As a mandated reporter you leave the criminal investigation up to a multidisciplined task force that work together as a team. And an extremely important element here is that it's an UNBIASED team--they do not have personal relationships with the alleged offender and/or victim. If these highly trained professionals do have such a relationship with an offender or victim, they excuse themselves from investigating the case at hand.

A member of the clergy--just like a therapist or teacher or doctor--who suspects child abuse, and especially in a member or by a member of their community, isn't unbiased. They should not be the ones to investigate. They should, however, be mandated to report suspected child abuse and neglect.

I am here today representing The Awareness Center, asking you to help us focus our attention on the children, rather than on the perceived image of religious groups. Some of these groups have spent or are planning to spend millions of dollars, contracting with private risk management groups, mostly devised to help prevent law suits, rather than to help heal our children and our communities.

The role of clergy, in the process of healing their community is unique. By working as liaisons with child protection services (rather than against them, by not reporting when they suspect abuse in the community) our clergy can become the missing link in meeting our goal to protecting our children. They can educate child protection workers on the customs and traditions specific to each communities.

Please, let us NOT BE AFRAID OF EACH OTHER. Child protection services aren't there to break up families and/or demolish the spiritual bond individuals have with God--they are there to protect children and to offer services to families in need.

The monies spent on private risk management agencies doesn't protect children. It doesn't provide the services needed to help heal the families, or our various religious communities. The only ones we need to be wary of are those who continue to harm our children. We need to STOP protecting offenders--whether they are clergy or laypeople. We need to all be made responsible to our children.

Please help support this bill. Please vote to have clergy join the many others who are already required to put children first by being mandated to report SUSPECTED child abuse and neglect.

Thank You.

Summary of the Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

(© 2003) The Awareness Center

The Awareness Center - Feb. 20, 2003 

For more information on this case CLICK HERE

Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks is a native of Denver, Colorado. In 1971, following the suicide of his father, Lejzor (also an Orthodox rabbi) amid financial scandal, Rabbi Bryks was sent away to study at yeshiva. In 1978, at age 24 he came to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where he was hired by the Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun synagogue. A charismatic personality he enlarged the synagogue's membership base and established many new programs, an NCSY chapter called Ohr Hagolah, Herzlia Academy night school, a pre-school, a nursery, a kindergarten, a Girl Guide troop, a Brownie troop and his own rabbinical court. He worked as a teacher at the community-run Jewish high-school, Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate and applied for the position of Vice-Principal. After the position went to another rabbi, he left the school and started his most ambitious project, an independently run Orthodox Jewish school. This school synagogue started with a few dozen elementary students and quickly expanded to over 150 students and a small junior high-school program.

 

Rabbi Bryks criticized other rabbis in Winnipeg's Jewish community over the validity of the city's eruv (a structure which allows Orthodox jews to carry items on the Sabbath) and its kosher food. Questions began to surface regarding Rabbi Bryks' credentials.

Keefler: In a community journal, Bryks boasted a degree there of law from the state of Israel, that he sat as a member of a religious court in Israel, and had a court room. The truth is, he was a rabbinical student, not a judge. And the state doesn't give out law degrees. <1>

In 1987, the Winnipeg Council of Rabbis wrote a letter to the editor of the Winnipeg Jewish Post & News alleging that Rabbi Bryks plagiarized several articles in his Weekly Torah commentaries from a book by Ottawa Rabbi Bulka's called Torah Therapy. Rabbi Bryks' lawyer threatened the newspaper with a lawsuit if the letter were published. It was never printed.

 

Diane Keefler: What people didn't see, many didn't believe. Bryks counseled women, studied with teenage girls, all behind his closed office door. Orthodox Jewish law forbids men from touching or even being alone with a female over the age of three who isn't family. A 14-year-old complained the rabbi often sat on her lap, touched her, tickled her, and talked about sex. Once, she says, he even licked her face. <1>

 

Additional women came forward, accusing Rabbi Bryks of making unwanted sexual advances. These women and the mother of the young girl took their allegations to Rabbi Avraham Altein, the leader of the local Lubavich community and a supporter of the positions Rabbi Bryks had taken in the past against the city's eruv and kosher food. After hearing their allegations, he counseled them not to go to the police or child family services. He told them to deal with the allegations internally with the synagogue board.

 

Keefler: The board didn't go to the police. Didn't contact child welfare agencies. Instead, board members set up their own private inquiry.

 

Judy Silver: We were trying to try him without it going public. We were trying to protect the synagogue.

 

Keefler: That December 1987, the board, Bryks and his lawyer heard the evidence. The teenager repeated her story. Two women also came forward, accused Bryks of making unwanted sexual advances. They weren't believed.

 

Nathan Kobrinsky: The people who brought forth these concerns against the rabbi were publicly humiliated and insulted and called liars. It was at this point that I felt that the whole process that I was participating in was a sham. <1>

 

During the board's deliberations about Rabbi Bryks, those not seen as loyal to Bryks suffered abuse from other congregants, shunning and were even spat at in the shul. Rabbi Bryks continued to teach at the school and run religious services.

 

Keefler: For three nights, accusations, legal threats, personal attacks.

 

Kobrinsky: We were being threatened collectively for taking a position against the rabbi, that would result in a legal suit. And second of all, we were being threatened individually, because of information that the rabbi had about us and our personal lives, that would be used against us.

 

Silver: He said quite clearly, I have secrets on all of you.

 

Keefler: On New Years Day 1988, a final board meeting. Word got out, more than a hundred people rushed to the synagogue. They feared Bryks would be fired. <1>

Over a hundred of Rabbi Bryks' supporters swarmed outside the boardroom, screaming threats against those who opposed Bryks. Ten board members voted to keep Rabbi Bryks, nine voted to fire him. The nine members who voted to fire him immediately quit in protest. The vacancies were filled with supporters and the new board voted unanimously to support Rabbi Bryks.

 

Wishing to put the controversy to rest, the new Board contacted Jewish Child and Family Services (JCFS), an organization Rabbi Bryks had sat on as a member of the Board of Directors, to investigate the allegations. JCFS could not investigate Rabbi Bryks due to a conflict of interest. The allegations were forwarded by JCFS to Winnipeg Child and Family Services (WCFS) to investigate. For two months, social workers interviewed 45 students, teachers and parents. One of Bryks' lawyers sat in open sight outside their offices presumably keeping track of who went in to their offices. The WCFS issued a report in March 1988: 

With respect to the behaviour of Rabbi Bryks regarding the teenage girls in the school, the findings of the investigation, on review by the Winnipeg City Police, indicated that there was no evidence which would support charges of criminal wrongdoing. Further, there is insufficient evidence to pursue any proceeding under The Child and Family Services Act against Rabbi Bryks.

 

Nothwithstanding the above findings, on review of the report, this writer is in agreement with the investigative team that the acknowledged interactions of Rabbi Bryks with his female students involving tickling at the waist, kissing on the head, hugging, and students sitting on his lap were neither appropriate nor professional behaviour.

At the time, there was no compulsory reporting of alleged child abuse by teachers in Manitoba:

Immediate reporting of alleged child abuse by teachers and other caregivers became compulsory in Manitoba following a 1989 amendment to the province's Child and Family Services Act. But Keith Cooper, the executive Director of Winnipeg South Child and Family Services, says that this amendment was passed because "at that time a lot of organizations handled these issues in the same kind of way." However Cooper still had concerns about the way the synagogues's board responded to the allegations.

 

"The process the synagogue took, rightly or wrongly--and they thought they were doing things in everyone's best interest--created circumstances within the synagogue community and school staff to choose sides and to let kids know that parents were on one side or another. And that kind of thing is not helpful to pursuing that sort of investigation because all sorts of other factors intrude."

Cooper added that when his office investigates child abuse complaints, investigators talk to children without subjecting them to any kind of outside pressure from anyone else to get a first sense of the allegations. When questioned about the impact of his office's finding that a poisoned environment against disclosing child abuse was inadvertently in effect at the school as a result of the board's initial response, Cooper thought it was possible that during a professional investigation at the outset, "other children might have come forward if there was something to come forward about."

 

Barney Yellen, Winnipeg's Jewish Child and Family Service's Executive Director, is also quite critical of the board's decision to conduct its own investigation and the board's subsequent decision to support Rabbi Bryks. "Regardless of the child abuse issue, there was a questionable professional conduct in his role as a teacher. It surprised me that he wasn't terminated." <2>

 

After the 1988 findings of the Winnipeg South Child Family Services, a new allegation in 1989 was brought to the police and Winnipeg Child and Family Services.

 

Keefler: She wasn 't the only student who kept a secret. We found another child who claimed he was victimized. In 1989, a year after the Child and Family Services investigation, a seven-year-old boy went to the Winnipeg police. His parents watched from the next room, listened, as the boy, using a doll, alleged Rabbi Bryks molested him in grade I. The couple is disguised to protect their son's identity.

 

Disguised mother: He showed on the doll ... that he had been basically, I guess, fondled, masturbated ... rubbed ... he used the word "tickled".

 

Disguised father: The Rabbi would come and get him out of the classroom during a session in class, take him up to the office. And he threatened him that if he were to say this to anyone the big boys would come and beat him up. <1>

 

Winnipeg Child and Family Services refused to investigate.

 

"The case was sent to the Crown," Inspector Lou Spado of the Winnipeg police said, "but no charge was laid because there was no corroboration. You have to be very careful in an investigation like that. It becomes the word of an 8 year old against that of an adult. We brought the rabbi in for questioning, but he refused comment." Asked why Winnipeg Child and Family Services didn't investigate that boy's allegations, Ken Cooper, the agency's chief executive officer, claimed the atmosphere in the school and shul at the time was so "emotionally charged" that any investigation would necessarily be "contaminated". <3>

 

Over the months both enrollment and membership fell. In 1990, after being offered a position as principal of a Montreal Jewish day school, Rabbi Bryks announced he would be leaving Winnipeg. The Torah Academy school closed down. However, the allegations followed him to Montreal. A group of irate parents informed the school of the investigations of Rabbi Bryks by Winnipeg Police and Family and Child Services. The job offer was withdrawn. Rabbi Bryks showed up in Montreal demanded the offer be reinstated and was given a hearing before a rabbinical court in Montreal. After the rabbinical court made some inquiries, the offer was to be reinstated. However, parents made it clear that if Rabbi Bryks were hired, there would be no students at the school. Rabbi Bryks was not hired.

 

Rabbi Bryks moved to New York. In Queens, he built another Torah Academy from scratch into a 400-student grade 7 to 12 Orthodox school. This was a new school for immigrant youth from the former Soviet Union. Irving Laub, a board member of the New York Torah Academy, said "He has singlehandedly built our school and held it together". "His rapport with the students and staff is everything we hoped for. I know how difficult his task was in integrating newly-arrived Russian teenagers into the Hebrew day school system. I'm a fan of his." <3>

 

The allegations against Rabbi Bryks were brought to the fore again in September 1993 after the suicide of 17-year-old Daniel Levin and a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) documentary in 1994. Daniel, a former Torah Academy student had gone to the Toronto police with charges of sexual abuse against Bryks which had been tormenting him.

 

Keefler: Daniel went to the school from kindergarten to Grade 2. Then the Levins moved away to Montreal, later to Toronto. As a teenager, Daniel's smile masked his pain. His parents had separated. The boy was in distress, unable to concentrate in school, prone to explosive fits of rage. At 14, he started therapy. Three years later, he stunned his mother and father.

 

Sara Levin: Last May, he started having -- May '93, he started having memories of being sexually abused by the rabbi and principal at Torah Academy. He was sitting on his lap, and the rabbi -- in his office in the rabbi's office, and the rabbi was -- it's so hard for me to say this --

 

Martin Levin: He was fondling.

 

Sara: He was fondling his genitals first over his clothes, and then he opened his pants. And afterwards, he gave him a candy. It was a peppermint one, with the blue wrapper, I think it says "Elite" on it. He even remembered the candy.

 

Martin: The internal mechanism for a flash second said, "It's got to be a mistake here, I'm not hearing this." But instantly, I knew that he was telling me the truth.

 

Sara: And then he said he had a memory, and he started coughing and spitting out mucous, and he sat up, and we got tissues for him. And he was coughing and spitting up and spitting up, and he started crying. And he said that he was in the office, and Rabbi Bryks put his penis in Daniel's mouth. And he kept coughing, and I encouraged him to spit it up, spit everything up. That was another memory.

 

Martin: He did say that Bryks said things. I wondered why he kept quiet. And then he said, "Well, Bryks said to me, God will punish you if you speak." <1>

 

Daniel Levin committed suicide on Yom Kippur after Metro Police asked the Oakwood Collegiate Grade 12 student to re-record a statement he had made in June 1993. The police tape machine had been faulty at the first recording. With the complainant dead and his testimony erroneously not recorded, Toronto Police were forced to drop the case.

 

The CBC documentary report, titled "Unorthodox Conduct", aired on local CBC TV's "24 Hours" and the national "Prime Time News", and dealt with the allegations of sexual abuse against Bryks. It also raised new allegations:

 

Keefler: [The March 1988 report] warned "if there is a child in the school that is currently being abused, the dynamics of the reaction of staff, fellow students and other adults over the past couple of months might prevent any child from coming forth with disclosure." That is exactly what happened to one girl., who didn't want to be interviewed on camera. A former student told us what she didn't tell Child and Family Services. ... that Rabbi Bryks fondled her breasts, once lay completely on top of her, touched her and tickled her all the time. When the social worker asked questions, the girl kept quiet.

 

Keefler: [We] found another student, who can't close that chapter of her life. A fourth student, this couple's daughter, claims she was molested.

 

Disguised mother: It's horrifying, and its unbelievable.Unbelievably numb.

 

Keefler: Last November, this couple's daughter told them she was molested by Rabbi Bryks in grade 2. They are disguised to protect the girl's identity.

 

Disguised father: Rabbi Bryks would take her out of class and would take her into his office during school time, and he would make her take off her underwear and stockings and then he would fondle her, her genitalia. She remembers it happening many times. She told me that he told her that if she ever told anybody that God would punish her.

 

Disguised father: The most painful recent event since her disclosure for me was going up to see how she was, in her bedroom, it 's just quiet and I just wanted to see how she was, going into her bedroom, she was sitting in her closet, curled up in a fetal ball, listening to Barney tapes with a little Barney book in her hand. I couldn't deal with that.

 

Keefler: The fourteen, year-old is in counseling to the police. Her parents say she isn't ready to go in the police.

 

Disguised mother: She is so fragile that this has to be in her own time.

 

Disguised father: She also knows about another boy who did go to the Police and nothing happened. Rabbi Bryks is still out there, still teaching school. <1>

When the broadcast was seen by school officials at the Queens Torah Academy in 1994 and the allegations were passed on to the New Russian World, the city's Russian daily newspaper, parents went "berserk," said a Brooklyn rabbi. <4>

"School-board members knew about his past and, regardless, gave him the position," said the rabbi, who didn't want his name published. <4>

Rabbi Bryks was "fired" according to Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, a teacher at Bryks' current school Yeshiva Berachel David in Queens. <4>

 

Unable to find employment in the education field, Rabbi Bryks found work with his in-laws at Astor Brokerage Limited. During this time he filed lawsuits against CBC and CNN (rebroadcast parts of CBC documentary on its Headline News Network) claiming defamation and damages. He abandoned the lawsuit in Canada and his lawsuit in the U.S. was dismissed. Within 2 years, Rabbi Bryks once again found employment as principal of a Russian elementary boys Yeshiva in Brooklyn called She'aris Israel. During this time Rabbi Bryks started his own rabbinical court in Queens and became active in the Agunah movement (movement to help women get religious divorces). Around 1999 Rabbi Bryks left She'aris Israel for reasons which are not known. He then started his own yeshiva for boys in Queens called Berachel David with the help of Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, Vice-President of the Queens Vaad Harabonim. The yeshiva is run out of Nisanov's synagogue Kehilat Sephardim.

 

In the summer of 2001, a group of Queens rabbis took the allegations against Rabbi Bryks to the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. There were several meetings, including a screening of the 1994 CBC documentary feature.

 

Rabbi Simcha Krauss of Young Israel of Hillcrest congregation led that effort. And he said he remains distressed that Bryks is still in Jewish education.

 

"To make a long story short, any pressure brought that he should resign would be welcome," Krauss said. <5>

 

"Unfortunately, there wasn't a tremendous reaction - it was hard for them to believe that he could do it," said a Queens rabbi who didn't want his name published. <4>

 

On March 31, 2002 The New York Post published an article entitled Queens Yeshiva Boss is a Molester: Boy's Mom by Douglas Montero about allegations concerning Rabbi Bryks. The story was re-broadcast on WCBS radio in New York. Once again, there wasn't a tremendous reaction within the Rabbinical or Jewish community.

 

On May 26, 2003 Stephanie Saul, journalist at Newsday (NY) began a series on sexual abuse in the Jewish community. An article published along with that series dealt with allegations concerning Rabbi Bryks. Rabbi Bryks was quoted:

 

"How do you battle a ghost?" says Bryks, sitting in the cramped office of the small yeshiva he runs in Kew Gardens Hills. He has done nothing wrong, he says. "I would love to have that case fully investigated." <6>

 

It should be noted that despite this claim Rabbi Bryks continues to exercise his legal rights and refuses to allow the Winnipeg police to question him or cooperate in their investigation.

"We brought the rabbi in for questioning, but he refused comment." <3>

 

Two days after the initial Newsday article was published, a follow up article was printed:

A Queens rabbi who had been dogged by old sexual abuse allegations from Canada this week resigned his membership in a prestigious rabbinical organization and agreed to leave Jewish education, officials of the group said Wednesday night.

 

The Rabbinical Council of America, an organization of Orthodox rabbis, was believed to be considering ousting Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Kew Gardens Hills as a result of the lingering abuse allegations, which arose when he was the pulpit rabbi and yeshiva administrator in a Winnipeg congregation during the 1980s.

 

Bryks has always denied those claims and continued the denial in submitting his resignation. <6>

 

Efforts to reach Rabbi Bryks were unsuccessful. But Rabbi Heshie Billet, immediate past president of the RCA, spoke with him at the convention and told The Jewish Week that Rabbi Bryks "is leaving Jewish education. The school is closing and since he no longer will have a formal rabbinic position he feels it's not necessary to belong to a professional rabbinic body.

 

"He told me his resignation should in no way be construed as an admission of guilt. He denies all the allegations against him," said Rabbi Billet. "I don't know what he'll be doing next. I just accepted his resignation at face value." <7>

 

By resigning Rabbi Bryks has avoided his case potentially being brought to the Rabbinical Council of America disciplinary committee. He avoids being subject as well to any enhancements in the Rabbinical Council of America code of conduct (any related discipline), any investigation of complaints and any process involving potential complaints. He also avoids the public scrutiny he was attracting as a member of the Rabbinical Council of America with his particular history of allegations.

 

Billet also said Bryks plans to leave his post as principal at Yeshiva Berachel David on 78th Road at the end of the school year.

 

"He's just going to be a private citizen," said Billet, the leader of Young Israel of Woodmere congregation. <6>

 

This marks the third time in Rabbi Bryks' close to three decades in Jewish education that he has taken a public break from his profession as a Jewish educator. In 1990, there was a very short break resulting from an offer of principalship at a Montreal Jewish school being withdrawn. There was also a break in 1995 after he left Queens Torah Academy. Other than current adverse publicity, there is no impediment to Rabbi Bryks re-entering the private Jewish educational field at some future time. Adverse publicity has not kept Rabbi Bryks out of the Jewish educational field for long in the past.

 

There have been several inaccurate statements in the press concerning the status of the Winnipeg criminal investigations, in particular: 

1. Canadian civil authorities investigated charges there and found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing. <7> 
2.  
3. and authorities declined to charge another because there was no evidence to do so. <8>

There in fact has been no final disposition to these charges or the investigation.

 

The case in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in fact remains open. To date Rabbi Bryks has not cooperated with the Winnipeg police or made himself available to answer the charges against him. There is no Statute of Limitations in Canada on criminal charges regarding the sexual assault of children.

 

In 1994, after the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) aired a documentary regarding further serious allegations against Rabbi Bryks a second police investigation was opened. Again the police sent the case to the Crown. Almost 2 years later, the Manitoba Crown (equivalent of the DA in the U.S.), announced in December of 1995 that it would not be pressing charges against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks at the time. It did not issue its reasons for doing so. There may have been numerous reason for doing so. <9>

 

The Crown prosecutors have not issued a closing document and the file on Bryks remains open. The Winnipeg police have also not closed their file on this matter and the file is currently assigned to a member of the police force.

 

Anyone with relevant information is encouraged to contact the Winnipeg Police at their main phone number 204-986-6037 (their website is located at: 

http://www.city.winnipeg.mb.ca/police/). The following officers have worked on the file in the past and should be able to help refer you to those currently handling the files: Inspector Lou Spado (may be retired) and Sgt. Robin Parker.

Anyone with relevant information in the U.S. is encouraged to contact their local police department and their local District Attorney's office.

 

The numbers in Queens are:

1. New York Police Department: NYPD Switchboard: 646-610-5000 website: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd/home.html Queens Precinct Addresses and Direct phone numbers can be found at:  http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd/html/phone.html#Queens
2. Queens District Attorney's office at: (718) 286-6000 website: http://www.queensda.org/

 

49 year-old Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks will continue to run Yeshiva Berachel David in Queens until the end of the 2003 school year. No public statement has been made concerning his membership on the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. Rabbi Bryks was a member of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) for over a quarter of a century before his May 27, 2003 resignation. Ads in The Jewish Press indicate that Rabbi Bryks is currently working as a mortgage broker for a company he runs out of his home called REB International LLC.

 

Notes:

<1> Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Program Prime Time News, February 28 1994, Time 21:00:00 ET

<2> Jewish Tribune – B'nai Brith Canada, August 4, 1994, More Allegations of Sexual Abuse Involving Rabbi: Police Probe Resumes At School "Jews need to know that this can happen to us" by Marc Huber

<3> The Jewish Post & News (Winnipeg), March 9, 1994, CBC report re-opens Bryks controversy by Myron Love

<4> The New York Post, March 31, 2002, Queens Yeshiva Boss is a Molester: Boy's Mom by Douglas Montero

<5> Newsday (NY), May 26, 2003, Battling a 'Ghost' From Past by Stephanie Saul

<6> Newsday (NY), May 28, 2003, Dogged By Allegations, Rabbi Quits - Rabbi Maintains Denial Of Any Wrongdoing by Stephanie Saul

<7> The Jewish Week (NY), June 6, 2003 Orthodox Rabbis To Report Abuse by Debra Nussbaum

<8> The Jewish Press (NY), June 4, 2003 Newsday And Abuse In The Jewish Community by Editorial Board

<9> The Jewish Post and News (Winnipeg), Wednesday, January 10, 1996 Editorial comment - A Second look at "Unorthodox Conduct"

For more information on this case CLICK HERE

Rabbi Bernard Freilich on Incest

According to Rabbi Bernard Freilich: 
"It is impossible that an Orthodox Chassidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her."

Back in 1995, Rabbi Bernard Freilich was Acquitted of death threats to an alleged incest survivor.  Freilich, is the long time administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations in Borough Park (Brooklyn, NY), told The New York Times that "people are outraged at these charges. They are unbelievable, impossible nonsense. It is impossible that an Orthodox Chassidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her."

Case of Rabbi Yisrael Menachem Grunwald

Case of Rabbi Yisrael Menachem Grunwald

(AKA: Israel Grunwald, Yisrael M. Grunwald, Israel M. Grunwald)

This page is currently being update

Rabbi Israel Greenwald

The Puppa Rebbe - Borough Park (Brooklyn), NY

Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef - Boro Park, NY
Camp - Swan Lake, NY

In a plea bargain agreement Rabbi Israel Grunwald agreed to 500 hours of community service and counseling after being accused of fondling a 15-year-old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia.  The charges against him were then dropped.


"The girl and her father accepted $50,000 in exchange for her agreement that she would not testify," in court.  According to reports "she didn't want to come to court and testify. She said she would state she was emotionally unable to do so." 

According to a Los Angeles Times article "Sex Charge Against Rabbi to Be Dropped", authorities said representatives of Rabbi Yisrael Menachem Grunwald initiated the payoff talks. Grunwald's attorneys insist that the girl's mother first raised the possibility of resolving the matter outside of court in 1995 and that the girl's father this year demanded $800,000 to $1.3 million to buy the girl's silence.

In court documents, Medvene says the girl's father described the $50,000 exchanged in Burbank as "a good faith gesture." 

The question remains, if Rabbi Grunwald was able to pay off one victim for her silence, was there others throughout the years, that he was able to do the same?

Israel Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Puppa Hasidim.

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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:  

1995

1. Puppa (Hasidic dynasty)
2. Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Sexually Abusing Girl (06/02/1995)
3. 2 Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Fondling Girl (06/02/1995)
4. Two Rabbis Are Charged In Sexual Abuse on a Plane (06/02/1995) 
5. 2 Rabbis Are Accused of Molesting Girl on Plane (06/02/1995)
6. Rabbi, assistant face sex-abuse charges (06/02/1995)
7. Rabbis charged with sexual abuse of minor on plane (06/02/1995)
   
8. Rabbi, Associate charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia  (06/02/1995)
9. 2 Rabbis Accused of Molesting Girl, 15 Crime: U.S. authorities say the attack occurred on Australia-to-L.A. flight. The ultra-orthodox leaders deny the charges (06/02/1995)
10. Rabbi, Associate Charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia (06/02/1995)
11. Rabbis deny claim in sex abuse case  (06/02/1995)
12. Rabbi Accused of Molesting Is Denied Bail (06/03/1995)
13. Brooklyn Rabbi Is Freed on Bail In Sex Case, but Assistant Is Held (06/03/1995)
14. 1 Accused Rabbi Will Stay Jailed for Weekend Courts: Judge terms him `a danger' pending bail hearing. He and a colleague, who has returned to New York, are accused of molesting girl on airliner (06/03/1995)
15. Hassidic rabbi and assistant charged with molestation (06/06/1995)
16. Rabbi's Assistant Kept in Jail on Sex Charge Crime: U.S. judge cites `very, very strong' allegations. The Brooklyn man and a Hasidic leader are accused of molesting 15-year-old girl on a flight to Los Angeles (06/07/1995)
17. Bail Set for Rabbi In Sex Abuse Case (06/08/1995)
18. Grand jury to hear sexual misconduct case involving rabbi (06/09/1995)
19. Grand jury issues indictment of Chasid accused of sex abuse  (06/14/1995)
20. Federal child sex charge has local tie  (06/16/1995)
21. Rabbi's aide indicted in sex attack of girl  (06/16/1995)
22. Focus on crimes involving religious Jews sparks debate  (06/16/1995)
23. Charges Against Rabbi Dropped  (07/07/1995)

1996 

1. Molestation Charge Refiled Against Rabbi (10/09/1996)
2. Rabbi Pleads Not Guilty in Molestation Case  (10/16/1996)  
3. RABBI: NO FONDLER (10/16/1996)

 

1997 

1. Lawyer: Sex abuse charge is plot against NY rabbi  (09/08/1997)
2. Rabbi Cleared, Lawyer Says (09/11/1997)
3. Feds: Rabbi May Have Tried To Pay to Stop Sex Charges (09/12/1997)
4. Deal to Drop Sex Charge Against Rabbi Unravels; Courts: Defense assails U.S. prosecutors, who say they were responding to inaccurate statements (09/13/1997)
5. Rabbi charged with molesting teen to do community service (09/22/1997)
6. Rabbi escapes teen fondling charges (09/23/1997)
7. Sex Charge Against Rabbi to Be Dropped; Courts: Allegations that Hasidic leader fondled girl on flight will be dismissed if he completes community service (09/23/1997)
8. Deal in Rabbi's Fondling Case / Charges dropped if he gets counseling, does community service (09/23/1997)
9. Sex Charges Against Rabbi Dropped  (09/23/1997) 
10. Rabbi gets Community service and counseling  (09/25/1997)

2008

1. Pupa Rabbi: Yisrael Menachem Grunwald From B.P. 2 - Video (08/16/2008)

2009

1.  Pupa Boys Camp Singing For The Pupa Rabbi (Yisrael Menachem Grunwald) - Video (07/23/2009)

Also see: 

1. Case of Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander
2. Case of Rabbi Bernard Freilich

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Puppa (Hasidic dynasty)

Wikipedia - July 26, 2006

Puppa is the name of a Hasidic group within Judaism. The group originated in Hungary in a town called "Pápa". Before World War II, Pápa had an important yeshivah which produced many well-known Orthodox rabbis in Hungary. The whole community was deported to Auschwitz and only a very few individuals came back. Currently there are no Jews in Pápa.

The group is based in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, with branches in Boro Park section of Brooklyn, Ossining, New York, London, and Israel. It is headed by the Pupa Rebbe who has several thousand followers. In their Williamsburg location in Brooklyn, they are second in size to the Satmar Hasidim with whom they share many communal facilities.

Lineage of Puppa Dynasty

• Grand Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov - founder of Hasidism.
• Grand Rabbi R' Ber - the Magid (Preacher) of Mezritch - disciple of the Baal Shem Tov.
• Grand Rabbi Shlomo of Lutzk - disciple of the Magid of Mezritch.
• Grand Rabbi Shalom Rokeach of Belz - disciple of Rebbe Shlomo of Lutzk.
• Grand Rabbi Yusha Rokeach of Belz - son of Rebbe Shalom.
• Grand Rabbi Moshe Greenwald of Chust - author of Arugas HaBosem - disciple of Rebbe Yusha of Belz.
• Grand Rabbi Yaakov Chizkiah Greenwald of Puppa - author of Vayaged Yaakov - son of the Arugas HaBosem.
• Grand Rabbi Yosef Greenwald of Puppa - author of Vayechi Yosef - son of the Vayaged Yaakov.
• Grand Rabbi Yaakov Chizkiah Greenwald of Puppa - present Rebbe of Puppa - son of the Vayechi Yosef.
• Grand Rabbi Yisrael Menachem Greenwald of Puppa - present Rebbe of Puppa Boro Park - son of the Vayechi Yosef.

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Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Sexually Abusing Girl 
Orlando Setinel - June 2, 1995

Two Hasidic rabbis from New York were due to appear in U.S. 

District Court on Thursday after being accused of sexually abusing a young girl during a long flight from Australia to the United States. An FBI spokesman said the two were arrested when the plane, which originated in Melbourne, Australia, landed at Los Angeles. 

The rabbis were identified as Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44.

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2 Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Fondling Girl
By Pete Bowles and Joseph A. Gambardello
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1995

Two Brooklyn rabbis, described by associates as strict followers of the Orthodox practice of avoiding any contact with women, have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during a flight from Australia. 

Israel Grunwald, the leader of the Borough Park branch of the Pupa Hasidim, and Yehudah Friedlander, his secretary, were arrested by FBI agents when they arrived Wednesday morning at Los Angeles International Airport and were charged with the sexual abuse of a minor and abusive sexual contact on an international flight. 

"The accusations are completely, absolutely, without any basis in fact. It's ridiculous," said Mitchell Egers, an attorney for the rabbis. 

Rabbi Beryl Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park called the charges "ridiculous, bizarre, absurd, humiliating," and added: "This is a man who wouldn't talk to a woman, and on a flight with 300 people, all of a sudden they decided to fondle a girl?" 

According to the FBI affidavit, the two rabbis, both 44, fondled the girl several times while on a United Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia. The girl told FBI agents that she repeatedly told the men not to bother her but that she kept her voice low because she was embarrassed. One passenger told agents she was "horrified" when she saw one of the men put his hand under the girl's blanket and "grope" her for five to eight minutes, according to the affidavit. 

FBI Agent Mark Van Steenburg said Friedlander, after being advised of his constitutional right to remain silent, said the girl had encouraged him to touch her. "I did it. I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," the agent quoted Friedlander as saying. 

U.S. magistrate judge Carolyn Turchin set bail at $10,000 for Grunwald. Friedlander's bail hearing was adjourned until today after confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in the Town of Monticello in which he was charged with sexual abuse. 

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Two Rabbis Are Charged In Sexual Abuse on a Plane

By ROBERT D. MCFADDEN

New York Times - June 2, 1995

The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and his assistant rabbi were charged in Los Angeles yesterday with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Melbourne, Australia, where the men had been on a lecture tour. The rabbis denied the allegations.

The suspects, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, 44, the head of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, 44, were arrested as they stepped off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday on the basis of a complaint made during the flight by a sobbing girl and radioed ahead, Federal officials said.

Arraigned in Los Angeles yesterday before a United States magistrate, Carolyn Turchin, Rabbi Grunwald was released on $10,000 bail for a June 21 preliminary hearing on a Federal charge of sexually touching a minor, an offense with maximum penalties of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Rabbi Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, was held for further investigation after the court was told he had admitted some of the acts to Federal agents, though contending that the girl had encouraged him, and that Rabbi Friedlander had pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree sexual abuse in Monticello, N.Y., in 1991. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years and a $250,000 fine.

Neither suspect entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues. But outside the court, Mitchell Egers, a lawyer representing both men, said his clients vehemently denied the charges.

"These are fine, decent, moral men, highly respected and looked up to by thousands of people in their community," Mr. Egers said. He said neither rabbi knew the girl, who is American, and he called the case "a mixup" and said he was "confident that the truth will emerge and that we'll all be happy."

Rabbi Bernard Freilich

Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Rabbi Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.

Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in Monsey, N.Y., Montreal, London and Jerusalem, as well as in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. Yakov Grunwald, the founder's eldest son, is the Grand Rabbi and head of the Williamsburg community, and Israel Grunwald leads several hundred families in Borough Park.

The acts were said to have occurred on United Air Lines Flight 842 over the Pacific. Federal prosecutors, who assumed jurisdiction under laws governing United States aircraft in flight, said the girl, whose name was withheld because of her age -- she turned 15 during the flight -- had accused Rabbi Grunwald, after first engaging her in conversation, of reaching across an empty seat, placing his hand under her shirt and touching her breast.

The girl's detailed complaint said Rabbi Friedlander, who had been sitting on the far side of his colleague, exchanged seats with Rabbi Grunwald, and made a series of unwanted approaches while the cabin lights were dimmed for movies and rest periods during the long overnight flight.

She said he forced his hand under her clothing and touched her breast repeatedly and her vagina, despite her pleas for him to stop and her efforts to push his hand away. The girl said she finally began sobbing and retreated to the lavatory.

An affidavit by Mark Van Steenburg, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's senior agent at the Los Angeles Airport, said that another passenger, Sheila Myers, seated across an aisle just forward of the girl, told him she saw Rabbi Friedlander grope the girl for five to eight minutes under a blanket and alerted the flight crew.

Mr. Van Steenburg said Rabbi Friedlander told him the girl had put his hand on her breast twice, and on her pelvic area. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," the agent quoted the rabbi as saying.

The allegations stunned the rabbis' colleagues, neighbors and members of their community in Borough Park, many of whom called the actions unthinkable and the charges unbelievable, possibly trumped up by the teen-aged girl. They also complained that the rabbis, who were dressed in their traditional black garb and wore beards and sidecurls, had been humiliated by Federal agents who handcuffed them as they stepped off the plane.

"It's the most shocking thing I could ever think of," said a neighbor of Rabbi Grunwald, who lives with his family above his synagogue at 1137 53d Street.

Rabbi Freilich spoke of "tremendous anger in the Jewish community" over the charges, and said: "It is impossible that an Orthodox Hasidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her. Our information is that she was trying to get into a conversation with them. To us, it looks like she drummed up a charge."

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2 Rabbis Are Accused of Molesting Girl on Plane
By Bettina Boxall and J. Michael
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1997 

A prominent New York rabbi and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate Thursday on charges that they sexually molested a teen-age girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week. 

In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint filed in Los Angeles, federal authorities allege that the ultra-orthodox rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old. 

Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing. 

"It did not happen," attorney Mitchell W. Egers said. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence." 

He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin set $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn.


The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until this morning after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with a sexual offense. 

There is no apparent dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4, 1991, but one entry in the court records apparently stated that the case was dismissed, while another said that he was convicted and sentenced. 

"I am aware there was some mix-up of some kind," Egers said. "We'll clarify it by tomorrow."
Egers, a Los Angeles attorney, said he was not familiar enough with New York law to know what the charge, sexual offense third degree, means. 

"It may be something that really didn't amount to anything," he said. "I'll put the whole picture together by tomorrow." 

About 15 supporters from New York and Los Angeles attended the court hearing, chanting from prayer books as they waited for the proceeding to begin. 

In New York, the Orthodox community said Grunwald's incredulous followers were calling from around the world. 

"He's a well respected person and very well liked," said Rabbi Bernard Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations in New York. "It's an impossible story. It's unbelievable. We're in total shock," Freilich said. "He's an ultra-orthodox rabbi. He wouldn't even speak to a girl, much less touch her."
The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teen-ager-a U.S. citizen who was traveling alone-and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident. 

According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat toward the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and fondled her breast. 

At some point, Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protests, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep. 

The affidavit quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teen-ager under her blanket for five to eight minutes. 

After later talking to the teen-ager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they left the plane. 

Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor, and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact. The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her. 

"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying. 

Among the supporters who filled three rows of the courtroom during Thursday's hearing was Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin of Chabad of Los Angeles. 

"Not only is he internationally known, but (Grunwald) and his assistant are married and reputable," Cunin said later. "The rabbi is a leader of thousands of thousands of thousands of followers both in America and Israel and Australia-all over the world. . . . I believe they'll be totally exonerated." 

Grunwald, who had gone to Australia to lecture on the Talmud at the invitation of that country's Jewish community, comes from a long line of rabbinical scholars. Freilich said Grunwald's father was the grand rabbi of the Pupa sect in Hungary. Grunwald and his brother now lead the group.

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Rabbi, assistant face sex-abuse charges
Washington Times - June 2, 1995

LOS ANGELES - A New York rabbi and his assistant were charged yesterday with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl aboard a flight from Australia. 

Rabbi Israel Grunwald was charged with abusive sexual contact, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was charged with sexual abuse of a minor. 

They were arrested Wednesday after the girl accused them of fondling her during a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. 

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Rabbis charged with sexual abuse of minor on plane
The Gazette (Montreal) - June 2, 1995

LOS ANGELES - The rabbi of a New York Hungarian Hasidic congregation and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate yesterday on charges that they sexually molested a teenage girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week. 

In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint, federal authorities allege that the rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old. 

Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing. "It did not happen," said attorney Mitchell Egers. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence." He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode. 

U.S. magistrate judge Carolyn Turchin set a $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn. 

1991 arrest 
The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until today after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with sexual abuse. 

There is no dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4 of that year, but one entry in the court records apparently stated the case was dismissed, while another said he was convicted and a sentence imposed. 

In New York, Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Rabbi Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late grand rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II. 

Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in Monsey, N.Y., Montreal, London and Jerusalem, as well as in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. 

The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teenager - a U.S. citizen who was travelling alone - and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident.
Changed seats 

According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat to the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and then fondled her breast. 

At some point Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protestations, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep. 

The affidavit also quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teenager under her blanket for five to eight minutes. 

After later talking to the teenager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they disembarked from the plane. 

Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact. 

The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her. 

"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying. 

WITH REPORTING BY NEW YORK TIMES


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Rabbi, Associate charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia
By Jaxon Van Debeken
Los Angeles Daily News - June 2, 1995

The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in New York and his assistant were charged Thursday in Los Angeles with groping a 15-year-old girl aboard an airplane flight from Australia. 

Rabbi Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44, were taken into custody by FBI agents when the plane arrived at Los Angeles International Airport at noon Wednesday. 

Friedlander faces a charge of sexual abuse of a minor and was being held until a bail hearing that was delayed till today. Grunwald was charged with a lesser offense of sexual contact with a minor and was released on $10,000 bond. 

"There is no question about the innocence of these people," said Mitchell Egers, the attorney for both men. "They are absolutely innocent." 

Grunwald, who heads a Hasidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and Friedlander, his assistant, were in Australia for conferences in Sydney and Melbourne. 

Egers called Grunwald a "very important leader of a religious movement." Whenever the rabbi speaks, Egers said he deals with issues of morality. 

"He is a very moral man and he deals with moral issues," he said. 

Neither man entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues. 

Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II. 

Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in New York, Montreal, London and Jerusalem. 

According to the affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Mark Van Steenburg in support of the charges, both men are accused of making advances to the girl while aboard United Airlines Flight 842 over the Pacific. 

The 15-year-old American girl told Van Steenburg that she was traveling alone on the plane and was seated one empty seat away from Grunwald, who she said rubbed her arm and asked if she was cold.
The girl claimed he groped her breast and then got up and was replaced by Friedlander, who the girl said then groped her repeatedly, according to the affidavit. 

The girl said she repeatedly resisted and attempted to fend off the advances. At one point, a woman who said she witnessed the conduct reported the trouble to the flight crew and later gave a statement to the FBI. 

The passenger, identified as Sheila Myers of Michigan, said she was "horrified" as she watched a man grope the girl for "over 5 to 8 minutes," according to the affidavit. 

Myers told Van Steenburg she saw the "jolt" when the man "shoved more of his arm under the blanket," according to the affidavit. 

Friedlander, who gave a statement to the FBI, said the 15-year-old had rubbed his hand and invited him to make sexual advances to her. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he told the agent. 

Rabbi Peter Friedman, who is a friend and colleague of Grunwald, said he was stunned about the allegations. "I live two streets away from him. I am sure and positive the whole story is a false story."

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2 Rabbis Accused of Molesting Girl, 15 Crime: U.S. authorities say the attack occurred on Australia-to-L.A. flight. The ultra-orthodox leaders deny the charges
By Bettina Boxall and Michael J. Kennedy
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1995

A prominent New York rabbi and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate Thursday on charges that they sexually molested a teen-age girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week. 

In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint filed in Los Angeles, federal authorities allege that the ultra-orthodox rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old. 

Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing. 

"It did not happen," attorney Mitchell W. Egers said. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence." 

He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin set $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn. 

The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until this morning after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with a sexual offense. 

There is no apparent dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4, 1991, but one entry in the court records apparently stated that the case was dismissed, while another said that he was convicted and sentenced. 

"I am aware there was some mix-up of some kind," Egers said. "We'll clarify it by tomorrow." 

Egers, a Los Angeles attorney, said he was not familiar enough with New York law to know what the charge, sexual offense third degree, means. 

"It may be something that really didn't amount to anything," he said. "I'll put the whole picture together by tomorrow." 

About 15 supporters from New York and Los Angeles attended the court hearing, chanting from prayer books as they waited for the proceeding to begin. 

In New York, the Orthodox community said Grunwald's incredulous followers were calling from around the world. 

"He's a well respected person and very well liked," said Rabbi Bernard Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations in New York. 

"It's an impossible story. It's unbelievable. We're in total shock," Freilich said. "He's an ultra-orthodox rabbi. He wouldn't even speak to a girl, much less touch her." 

The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teen-ager-a U.S. citizen who was traveling alone-and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident. 

According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat toward the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and fondled her breast. 

At some point, Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protests, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep. 

The affidavit quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teen-ager under her blanket for five to eight minutes. 

After later talking to the teen-ager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they left the plane. 

Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor, and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact. 

The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her. 

"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying. 

Among the supporters who filled three rows of the courtroom during Thursday's hearing was Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin of Chabad of Los Angeles. 

"Not only is he internationally known, but (Grunwald) and his assistant are married and reputable," Cunin said later. "The rabbi is a leader of thousands of thousands of thousands of followers both in America and Israel and Australia-all over the world. . . . I believe they'll be totally exonerated." 

Grunwald, who had gone to Australia to lecture on the Talmud at the invitation of that country's Jewish community, comes from a long line of rabbinical scholars. Freilich said Grunwald's father was the grand rabbi of the Pupa sect in Hungary. Grunwald and his brother now lead the group, and Grunwald also heads a synagogue, a yeshiva and a girl's school.

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Rabbi, Associate Charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia
By Jaxon Ban Debeken
Los Angeles Daily News - June 2, 1995 

The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in New York and his assistant were charged Thursday in Los Angeles with groping a 15-year-old girl aboard an airplane flight from Australia. 

Rabbi Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44, were taken into custody by FBI agents when the plane arrived at Los Angeles International Airport at noon Wednesday. 

Friedlander faces a charge of sexual abuse of a minor and was being held until a bail hearing that was delayed till today. Grunwald was charged with a lesser offense of sexual contact with a minor and was released on $10,000 bond. 

"There is no question about the innocence of these people," said Mitchell Egers, the attorney for both men. "They are absolutely innocent." 

Grunwald, who heads a Hasidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and Friedlander, his assistant, were in Australia for conferences in Sydney and Melbourne. 

Egers called Grunwald a "very important leader of a religious movement." Whenever the rabbi speaks, Egers said he deals with issues of morality. 

"He is a very moral man and he deals with moral issues," he said. 

Neither man entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues. 

Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II. 

Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in New York, Montreal, London and Jerusalem. 

According to the affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Mark Van Steenburg in support of the charges, both men are accused of making advances to the girl while aboard United Airlines Flight 842 over the Pacific. 

The 15-year-old American girl told Van Steenburg that she was traveling alone on the plane and was seated one empty seat away from Grunwald, who she said rubbed her arm and asked if she was cold. 

The girl claimed he groped her breast and then got up and was replaced by Friedlander, who the girl said then groped her repeatedly, according to the affidavit. 

The girl said she repeatedly resisted and attempted to fend off the advances. At one point, a woman who said she witnessed the conduct reported the trouble to the flight crew and later gave a statement to the FBI. 

The passenger, identified as Sheila Myers of Michigan, said she was "horrified" as she watched a man grope the girl for "over 5 to 8 minutes," according to the affidavit. 

Myers told Van Steenburg she saw the "jolt" when the man "shoved more of his arm under the blanket," according to the affidavit. 

Friedlander, who gave a statement to the FBI, said the 15-year-old had rubbed his hand and invited him to make sexual advances to her. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he told the agent. 

Rabbi Peter Friedman, who is a friend and colleague of Grunwald, said he was stunned about the allegations. "I live two streets away from him. I am sure and positive the whole story is a false story."
 
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Rabbis deny claim in sex abuse case
By Mary Jane Pardue
Washington Post - June 2, 1995 

LOS ANGELES - A prominent New York rabbi and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate judge Thursday on charges that they sexually molested a teenage girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week. 

Federal authorities allege that the ultra-orthodox rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the girl and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old. 

The two denied any wrongdoing. They had been to Australia to lecture on morality.

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Rabbi Accused of Molesting Is Denied Bail
San Franscisco Chronicle - June 3, 1995

A Hasidic Jewish rabbi from New York accused of fondling a teenage girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles was denied bail yesterday by a judge who deemed him "a danger to the community." 

U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin ordered Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, charged with sexual abuse over the incident aboard the flight from Melbourne on Wednesday, held in federal prison until a hearing scheduled for Tuesday. 

Friedlander, 44, who had accompanied his sect leader, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, on a trip to Australia to lecture Jews on sexual morality, was arrested along with Grunwald by airport police at Los Angeles and handed over to the FBI. 

Friedlander allegedly put his hands down the 15-year-old's panties during an incident in which both Jewish religious leaders were said to have fondled the American teenager, who was traveling on her own.
Grunwald, also 44, has been charged with the lesser offense of abusive sexual conduct for allegedly cupping the girl's breasts in his hand and was freed Thursday on $10,000 bail. 

Grunwald, an Orthodox Hasidic Jew, is a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and heads the Kehilas Joseph congregation in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. 

Friedlander was denied bail because of a previous sexual abuse charge leveled against him in Monticello, a Catskill Mountains resort town in upstate New York. Turchin, in denying him bail, said she wanted more details on the New York case.
Los Angeles attorney Mitchell Egers, hired by the rabbis to defend them, called the girl's allegations "ridiculous."
A criminal complaint filed in court by FBI agent Mark Van Steenburg said Friedlander claimed the teenager initiated the incident.
 

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METROPOLITAN DESK

Brooklyn Rabbi Is Freed on Bail In Sex Case, but Assistant Is Held

By ROBERT D. MCFADDEN

New York Times - June 3, 1995

A Brooklyn rabbi charged in Los Angeles with touching the breast of a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia returned home yesterday, but his assistant, facing a more serious sex-abuse charge, was ordered held pending an inquiry into his involvement in a 1991 sexual-abuse case in upstate New York.

The two rabbis were returning on a United Air Lines flight to Los Angeles on Wednesday when an American girl traveling alone ran sobbing to the crew and accused the men of molesting her. The rabbis were arrested on arrival in Los Angeles.

Rabbi Grunwald, the leader of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, was charged with sexually touching a minor and was released on a $10,000 signature bond at a hearing on Thursday. He flew to New York yesterday and went into seclusion at his home at 1137 53d Street.

But Rabbi Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, was held without bail after prosecutors said he had admitted some of the acts, although contending that the girl had encouraged him.

Prosecutors also told the court on Thursday that Rabbi Friedlander had been involved in a 1991 sexual-abuse case in Monticello, N.Y. The prosecutors erroneously told the court then that he had pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree sexual abuse, the records of which had been sealed. The magistrate ordered the defendant held pending the unsealing of those records.

Returning to court yesterday, prosecutors said they had not yet received permission from a New York judge to obtain the sealed records. Federal Magistrate Carolyn Turchin ordered the hearing continued and Rabbi Friedlander held until Tuesday.

In New York yesterday, Justice Robert C. Williams of State Supreme Court in Monticello, acting on a request relayed by the Sullivan County District Attorney, Stephen Lungen, ordered the case record sent to Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors refused to disclose the contents of the record. But officials close to the inquiry said that Rabbi Friedlander, while working at a yeshiva, had been accused of sexual abuse by a dismissed employee.

In an appearance in Monticello Village Court in October, 1991, he did not plead guilty, officials said. Instead, a judge ordered a six-month adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, on condition of good behavior. After six months, the charge was dismissed and the case record was sealed.

Rabbi Friedlander's lawyer, Mitchell Egers, said yesterday that the charges against his client were false.

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1 Accused Rabbi Will Stay Jailed for Weekend Courts: Judge terms him `a danger' pending bail hearing. He and a colleague, who has returned to New York, are accused of molesting girl on airliner 

By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - June 3, 1995

With questions still hovering around the prior arrest of one of two New York rabbis charged in a sexual molestation case, Yehudah Friedlander will remain in jail this weekend. 

Rejecting a request to release Friedlander for a Jewish holiday, a federal magistrate ordered Friday that he be held pending a bail hearing Tuesday. 

"I believe your client is a danger to the community," U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin told attorney Mitchell W. Egers, who had argued that Friedlander was neither a danger nor a flight risk and therefore should be let out of jail to observe the Sabbath and Shavuot, a holiday that begins this evening. 

In a case that has stunned the Orthodox Jewish community, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New-York based Hasidic sect, and Friedlander, his assistant, are accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles this week. 

Grunwald, charged with abusive sexual contact, was released on $10,000 bail Thursday night and returned to New York. The bail hearing for Friedlander, charged with sexual abuse of a minor, has twice been continued to give authorities time to determine the final outcome of his 1991 arrest in Monticello Township, N.Y. 

According to Assistant U.S. Atty. Joel Thvedt, Friedlander was charged four years ago with having sexual contact with someone without consent. He apparently was given a conditional disposition: If he successfully completed probation, the case would not be prosecuted. 

The court records were sealed, however, delaying the files' release to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles. 

Thvedt said that his office received the records Friday afternoon but that the contents would be open only to court officials. The matter will be taken up again Tuesday morning, when Turchin is expected to set bail for Friedlander, 44. 

Judging from the magistrate's comments Friday, the figure will be considerably higher than it was for Grunwald, who is charged with a less serious offense. Turchin said that on Tuesday, Friedlander should be prepared to say if he has property to post a "significant" bond. She also indicated that she may require him to wear an electronic monitoring device to track his whereabouts.
 
In an affidavit accompanying a federal complaint filed in Los Angeles, authorities allege that Grunwald, 44, fondled the teen-ager's breast and that Friedlander fondled and molested her while she tried to sleep under a blanket during the transpacific flight. 

The teen-ager told authorities that she persistently attempted to fend off the advances but did so quietly because she was embarrassed by the situation and did not want to attract attention. 

The complaint states that another passenger, a woman from Michigan, told the FBI that she saw one of the men groping the girl under the blanket. After talking to the girl later, the woman alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities, and the men were arrested as they got off the plane Wednesday. 

The affidavit further quotes Friedlander, in an interview with the FBI, as admitting sexual contact with the girl. But he says that she initiated it. Egers, maintaining his clients' innocence, said the affidavit is inaccurate. 

The allegations have ricocheted through the Orthodox community, which did not seem aware of Friedlander's previous arrest and now finds it impossible to believe that two well-respected figures in an ultra-orthodox Hasidic sect could do what they are accused of. 

"Hasidic leaders are charismatic persons who are role models of an extraordinary nature," said Rabbi Eli Schochet of Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills. That, he said, "makes accusations of this sort striking-almost blasphemous-particularly when they believe that a man is prohibited from being in the same room with a woman to whom he is not married or related." 

"No physical contact whatsoever would be permitted," according to Jewish law, said Schochet, a rabbi in the Conservative branch of Judaism. 

In New York, "This news is being greeted with a combination of shock, horror and a very healthy dosage of skepticism," said Rabbi Yehuda Levin, host of a weekly radio show for the Hasidic community in Rockland County, outside New York City. 

When he was shopping in preparation for the Sabbath Friday, Levin said, the talk on the streets was all about the arrests. 

"People are saying they feel this girl saw these two Orthodox rabbis and didn't like the way they were either segregating themselves from her or treating her, so she decided they had done something to her," he said. "There's a very strong feeling that this is absolutely fictitious-that it is a canard." 

At the same time, Levin said, people are seeing it as a message that "Americana, as it is, has crept into even the most Hasidic of households. . . . This is telling us to be on our guard." 

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a spokesman for the Rabbinical Council of California, an Orthodox group, described the Pupa Hasidic sect, which Grunwald leads with his brother, as "small but certainly not insignificant."


Named after a Hungarian town, the sect was brought to America by Grunwald's father, a survivor of the Holocaust, who built up the Pupa community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. 

Adlerstein, who is Orthodox but not Hasidic, said the Pupa sect served as an alternative to the larger Satmar sect for people who thought parts of Satmar were "strong or overstated." 

"They (the Pupa) were sort of a mild-mannered group of Hasidim," he said. 

The Grunwald family, he added, is a "respected and known name in Hasidim." After the death of Rebbe Grunwald, the community broke up and Israel Grunwald and his brother each "carved out a different piece of the turf," Adlerstein said. 

While he said he found the charges ludicrous, Rabbi Abraham Hecht of New York added that if they turn out to be true, Grunwald will get no sympathy. 

"Rabbis will bring the wrath of heaven down on him," he said. 

Times staff writers John Dart, Bob Pool and Larry B. Stammer contributed to this story.

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Hassidic rabbi and assistant charged with molestation
By Tom Tugend
Jerusalem Post  - June 6, 1995

A RESPECTED hassidic rabbi and his assistant have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl last week during an overnight flight here from Australia. The accused are Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, a leader of the Hungarian Pupa hassidim, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, both 44. 

Following a hearing last Thursday, US Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin released Grunwald on $10,000 bail, and he immediately flew to New York. He is scheduled to return for a preliminary hearing on June 21. 

Friedlander remained in detention over Shabbat and Shavuot, despite Egers' protests. He is being held pending clarification over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in New York state, in which he was charged with a sexual offense. He is to appear today for a bail hearing. 

A nine-page affidavit submitted to the court by an FBI agent alleges a number of occurrences during the United Air Lines overnight flight. 

The girl, an American traveling alone, accused Grunwald of leaning across an empty seat and, following some conversation, touching her necklace and fondling her breasts. 

At some point, Friedlander exchanged seats with Grunwald, and while the cabin lights were dimmed, Friedlander allegedly groped and fondled the girl's private parts and breast for some five to eight minutes, the complaint charged. 

The teenager told authorities that she tried to fend off the advances but was too embarrassed to call for help. However, a woman passenger observed the alleged incident, talked to the girl and then notified the fight crew, which radioed a report to authorities.


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Rabbi's Assistant Kept in Jail on Sex Charge Crime: U.S. judge cites `very, very strong' allegations. The Brooklyn man and a Hasidic leader are accused of molesting 15-year-old girl on a flight to Los Angeles
By Bettina Boxwell
Los Angeles Times - June 7, 1995

Citing the seriousness of the allegations as well as the suspect's record, a federal magistrate refused Tuesday to release a rabbi's assistant jailed on charges that he sexually molested a teen-age girl on a transpacific flight. 

"The corroborated allegations in the affidavit are very, very strong at this time," U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin said at a Los Angeles bail hearing, referring to the complaint filed against Yehudah Friedlander, 44, of Brooklyn, N.Y. 

"I believe your client is a serious danger to the community," she told defense attorney Mitchell W. Egers. 

Turchin said she would consider setting bail for Friedlander if someone who has known him for at least five years is willing to post a $100,000 personal property bond. 

In remarks to reporters, Egers later said he would make every effort to get his client out of jail, which he described as a particularly unpleasant place for a religious person such as Friedlander. 

Both Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald, with whom he was traveling on an Australia-to-Los Angeles flight last week, are accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old who sat in their row. 

Grunwald, a leader of a New York-based Hasidic sect, was released on $10,000 bail last week and returned home. He is charged with abusive sexual contact. Friedlander, who Egers said is Grunwald's assistant but is not an ordained rabbi, is charged with sexual abuse of a minor. 

Proclaiming the innocence of both men, Egers has criticized the accuracy of a detailed affidavit filed with the complaint. In addition to quoting the teen-ager, the document quotes another passenger as saying that she saw one of the men groping the girl and quotes Friedlander as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she encouraged him to do so. 

Egers had requested $25,000 bail for Friedlander, who is married and has five children. 

Government prosecutors asked that Friedlander be held or that Turchin require a $100,000 bond before releasing him. 

"Essentially," Assistant U.S. Atty. Debra Yang argued, Friedlander "reached into the pants of a 15-year-old minor who was a stranger."


Yang added that the circumstances underlying Friedlander's 1991 arrest in Sullivan County, N.Y., were troubling. Turchin seemed to agree, telling Egers, "I construe the documents as essentially unfavorable to your client." 

The files of the prior arrest were made available to Turchin and the attorneys, but they otherwise remain sealed by court order and details of the case were not publicly disclosed. 

Prosecutors say the charge, a misdemeanor alleging sexual contact without consent, was dismissed after Friedlander completed a six-month probation. Egers indicated in court that the complaint had been filed by an adult.

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 Bail Set for Rabbi In Sex Abuse Case 

New York Times - June 8, 1995

A Federal magistrate set bail at $200,000 today for a Brooklyn rabbi accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl during an airplane flight.

Magistrate Carolyn Turchin set bail for the rabbi, Yehudah Friedlander, after his sister and his daughter's father-in-law posted bonds to insure the bail.

Rabbi Friedlander, 44, an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, was expected to leave the Metropolitan Detention Center here by Thursday, his lawyer, Mitchell Egers, said.

When he returns to Brooklyn, he will be under house arrest and be required to stay away from juveniles except his own children. He must also be supervised during flights to Los Angeles for court appearances, Ms. Turchin said.

Rabbi Friedlander and Rabbi Grunwald, 44, were arrested on May 29 at Los Angeles Airport on charges that they fondled the girl during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles. Both men were charged with abusive sexual conduct.

Rabbi Grunwald was released earlier on $10,000 bail. Ms. Turchin rejected Rabbi Friedlander's request for bail on Tuesday.

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Grand jury to hear sexual misconduct case involving rabbis

by TOM TUGEND

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - June 9, 1995

LOS ANGELES -- Federal authorities will decide next week whether to seek indictments of a respected Chassidic rabbi and his assistant, both of whom have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year old girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.

The assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Joel Thvedt, said he intended to present the case to a grand jury, which would decide whether to prosecute.

The accused are Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, a leader of the Hungarian Pupa Chassidim, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, both 44 years old.

Their arrests have sparked outrage in the Chassidic and Orthodox communities of New York, while Los Angeles rabbis moved quickly to aid their colleagues.

Both of the accused have vehemently denied the charges, according to their attorney, Mitchell W. Egers.

After a hearing here June 2, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin released Grunwald on $10,000 bail. He immediately flew back to New York.

Grunwald, charged with sexually touching a minor, faces a maximum of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine if he is convicted.

Friedlander remained in detention over the Sabbath and the Shavuot holiday, despite Egers' protests. He was being held pending clarification of the disposition of a 1991 arrest in New York state, in which he was charged with a sexual offense.

On Tuesday, Turchin denied a cash bail to Friedlander, calling him "a danger to society."

The judge said Friedlander only would be released if someone put up his or her house with equity valued at least at $100,000.

If convicted, Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Friedlander has been identified in the media as a rabbi or "assistant rabbi," but according to Egers and New York sources, he is actually a non-rabbinical assistant.

A nine-page affidavit submitted to the court by an FBI agent, which cites statements by the young girl, a witness on the plane and Friedlander, alleges a number of occurrences during the long United Air Lines overnight flight.

The girl, an American traveling alone, accused Grunwald of leaning across an empty seat and, following some conversation, touching her necklace and fondling her breasts.

At some point, Friedlander allegedly exchanged seats with Grunwald, and while the cabin lights were dimmed, Friedlander allegedly groped and fondled the girl's private parts and breast for some five to eight minutes, the complaint charged.

The teenager told authorities that she tried to fend off the advances but was too embarrassed to call for help. However, a woman passenger observed the alleged incident, talked to the girl and then notified the flight crew, which radioed a report to authorities.

When the plane landed in Los Angeles, FBI agents, who assumed jurisdiction under the laws governing American aircraft in flight, arrested the two men.

One agent quoted Friedlander as telling him that it was the girl who initiated the advances, adding that "I shouldn't have done it, but it happened."

Egers said Friedlander was "in a state of shock and deeply upset that the whole Jewish world" knows about the accusations.

Egers, a veteran trial lawyer with close ties to the Orthodox community, said when he and his two clients appeared in court last week, he was "besieged by armies of reporters, with just about all the media from New York and Los Angeles on hand." For a day, "we were bigger than the O.J. Simpson case."

Reaction to the arrests was sharpest in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, where Grunwald serves as rabbi of Congregation Tuldos Yacov Yosef.

Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations in Boro Park, told The New York Times that "people are outraged at these charges. They are unbelievable, impossible nonsense. It is impossible that an Orthodox Chassidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her."

Rabbi Abner Weiss of the Orthodox Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills took a less categorical view. He was being installed as the new president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California when he received word of the arrests.

In his first act in office, Weiss conferred with Aaron Kriegel, a Conservative rabbi who serves as prison chaplain, to assure that the two Chasidim would receive kosher food. Weiss said he personally bought loaves of challah for Grunwald and Friedlander.

Without passing judgment on the case, Weiss, who holds a graduate degree in psychology, noted that, in general, "Jews are not immune to any kind of illness, physical or mental."

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Grand jury issues indictment of Chasid accused of sex abuse

By Tom Tugend

JTA - June 14, 1995

A federal grand joy has returned a one-count indictment of sexual abuse of a minor against Yehudah Friedlander, one of two Chasidic men arrested earlier this month after an overnight flight from Australia to Los Angeles.

Friedlander is an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads a small faction of Pupa Chasidim in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.

Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested together, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said it has not been determined whether an indictment would be sought against the rabbi.

Friedlander is free on $200,000 bail and has been ordered to appear in court here on Monday.

At that time, he will hear the formal charges and enter a plea of innocence, according to his attorney, Michael Abzug.

If convicted, Friedlander could face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The charges against the two men, contained in a nine-page FBI affidavit, allege that during a plane ride from Australia to Los Angeles, Grunwald and Friedlander fondled and groped a 15-year-old American girl, sitting one seat away.

After complaints from the girl and a woman who said she witnessed the incident, the two men were arrested as they stepped off the plane in Los Angeles.

Grunwald, who would face the less serious charge of sexually touching a minor, was released on $10,000 bail and returned to New York.

He was originally scheduled to appear in court on June 26, but his attorney, Mitchell Egers, said there would be a delay.

According to the FBI affidavit, Friedlander told one agent that it was the girl who initiated the advances. But he also admitted, "I shouldn't have done it, but it happened."

Abzug denied that Friedlander, the father of five children, had made such a confession, adding that there was a question whether other statements had been lawfully obtained.

The accusations have been met with shock and disbelief in the Chasidic community of Borough Park, where Grunwald leads some 100 followers in a breakaway faction of the Pupa sect.

He is the son of the late Josef Grunwald, the Hungarian-born founder and grand rabbi of the 12,000-member Pupa movement. On the founder's death, the title developed on his older son, Yakov Grunwald, who heads the main Pupa community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

According to the New York Jewish Week, there has been a longstanding feud between the two brothers, with Israel Grunwald in Borough Park refusing to recognize the authority of his older brother in Williamsburg.

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Federal child sex charge has local tie

By TOM RUE

The River Reporter, June 15, 1995

MONTICELLO - An ultra-orthodox rebbe arrested in Los Angeles for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a jetliner had a prior similar charge dismissed in Village of Monticello Justice Court, according to The New York Times and Cable News Network.

Yehuda Friedlander, now 44, was charged in 1991 with sexual abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor. The charge was reportedly adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, and ultimately dismissed and sealed. It allegedly involved an offense against an adult woman.

At the time of the accusation, Friedlander reportedly managed a children's summer camp in Sullivan County.

Former village justice Mark Schulman was the judge who dismissed the charge against the rebbe, according to two sources familiar with the case. Local authorities declined to release any information, claiming the case was sealed by the justice court.

Friedlander was arrested on June 1 with Israel Grunwald, the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas, on May 29 after arriving on a flight from Australia. Friedlander is assistant rabbi of the same congregation. Both pled not guilty.

The girl, whose name was not reported, told authorities one rabbi reached inside her shirt and fondled her breasts during the flight, and the other pushed his hands into her underpants.

Federal magistrate Carolyn Turchin is Los Angeles denied Friedlander bail, stating she wanted to know more about the Monticello case first. Grunwald was released on a $10,000 bond, pending a June 21 appearance.

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Rabbi's aide indicted in sex attack of girl

JTA - June 16, 1995

LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- A federal grand jury on Tuesday returned a one-count indictment of sexual abuse of a minor against Yehudah Friedlander, an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads a small faction of Pupa Chassidim in Boro Park, Brooklyn.

Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested together, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said it has not been determined whether an indictment of the rabbi will be sought.

Friedlander is currently free on $200,000 bail and has been ordered to appear in L.A. court June 19 to hear the charges and enter a plea, which will be "not guilty," said his attorney, Michael Abzug.

If convicted, Friedlander could face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The charges against the two men, contained in a nine-page FBI affidavit, allege that during a plane ride from Australia to Los Angeles, Grunwald and Friedlander fondled and groped a 15-year old American girl, sitting one seat away.

A woman who said she witnessed the alleged attack convinced the girl to tell the flight crew, and the two men were arrested as they disembarked in Los Angeles.

Grunwald, who would face the lesser charge of sexually touching a minor, was released on $10,000 bail and returned to New York. He was to appear in court June 26, but his attorney, Mitchell Egers, said there will be a delay.

The FBI affidavit said Friedlander told one agent that it was the girl who initiated the advances. "I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he reportedly said.

Abzug denied that Friedlander, the father of five children, had made the confession, and questioned whether other statements were obtained lawfully.

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Focus on crimes involving religious Jews sparks debate

by DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - June 16, 1995

NEW YORK -- Is it right to expect more moral behavior from those who present themselves as religious Jews than from those who do not?

The answer depends on which rabbi you ask.

The question arises in the wake of the indictment on sex crime charges of an aide to a prominent Chassidic rabbi and several instances of alleged breaches of ethical behavior by Jews who call themselves religious.

Among those whose morality has been called into question is a Reform rabbi, who has been the focus of community suspicion in the murder of his wife, though he has neither been arrested nor formally ruled out as a suspect.

On the other end of the religious spectrum are two leaders of a Chassidic community, who were arrested on charges of sexually molesting a teenage girl, and an Orthodox district attorney, whose financial abuses of his office and marital infidelities were recently exposed.

Such crimes are not limited to members of the rabbinate and Orthodox world, of course, but there is much greater interest in such cases when these individuals are involved.

Recognizing that even rabbis need explicit guidance about behaving ethically in financial and sexual matters in complicated times, the Reform movement updated its rabbinic ethics policy in 1991.

And a few months ago, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly adopted its own rabbinic ethics policy on similar matters.

The Conservative movement has no formal policy, though its rules for filing and dealing with a complaint against a rabbi are in the process of being clarified, said Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the movement's Rabbinical Assembly.

For the mainstream Orthodox rabbinical group, the Rabbinical Council of America, the ethics policy is "the laws of the Torah," said Rabbi Steven Dworken, the group's executive vice president.

"We presuppose that an Orthodox rabbi doesn't need more of a policy than that," he said.

But the current case involving allegations that a rabbi of the Pupa Chassidic sect and his assistant sexually abused a teenage girl while flying from Australia to Los Angeles suggests that not every Orthodox Jew follows the Torah closely.

Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the leader of Congregation Toldos Yakov Yosef in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, was charged with the federal crime of sexually touching a minor, while his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was indicted for sexual abuse.

The court was told the rabbi had admitted to federal agents that he had committed some of the acts, which the girl said included forcing his hand under her clothing and repeatedly touching her breast and her vagina despite her pleas not to, according to news reports.

Friedlander reportedly pleaded guilty in 1991 to the charge of third-degree sexual abuse in a Monticello, N.Y., case.

A federal magistrate, in initially denying bail, called Friedlander "a danger to the entire community." The rabbis' attorney told reporters that both denied the charges.

The case is clearly getting more attention in the media than it would have had the alleged assailants been non-religious.

Rabbis of several denominations interviewed said the attention is justified.

According to one Orthodox rabbi, Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, "It is legitimate to expect more" moral behavior from the observant. Still, "no system, no matter how good, will not have individual failures."

That Friedlander had allegedly pleaded guilty to sexual abuse several years earlier, yet retained a position of importance within his community, was also cause for concern, said Greenberg.

"Was that behavior treated with the seriousness it deserves, or did the `oldboys' close ranks behind him? It raises that question," said Greenberg, president of CLAL -- the Jewish Institute for Learning and Leadership.

"In the Orthodox community there is too much closing ranks and a `no one rock the boat' mentality. There is authoritarian leadership, and dissent is not tolerated. Criticism is seen as disloyalty," he said.

The spokesman for an ultra-reglious group, Agudath Israel of America, said he was not so certain that the focus on religious Jews' failings is legitimate.

"The attention paid to them because they're Chassidim is understandable but lamentable," said Rabbi Avi Shafran.

"What results from it is the reinforcement of the stereotype that Chassidim are hypocrites. The overwhelming majority of the observant world is people determined to keep to the stringencies of their faith," he added.

"For people to think Chassidim are this way, hiding a darker self, is embarrassing to all of us who wear beards and yarmulkes."

In another high-profile New York case, Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, an Orthodox Jew, quit his post last month shortly before pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of defrauding the government in a deal he worked out with the U.S. Attorney.

Although married, a father and grandfather, Gribetz was partly done in by his former mistress, who went to the media with information about him. Gribetz aspired to being a congressman and was admired by many of his area's religious Jews.

Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Gribetz's longtime rabbi, said in an interview that he had often cited Gribetz in his speeches to illustrate how a devout Jew can remain faithful to the laws of kashrut and Shabbat while pursuing any career --even in law and politics.

But evidence police collected from Gribetz's ex-lover's home included whips, a dog collar, sex toys and pictures of Gribetz modeling women's clothing. Their three-year affair apparently included trips they took together funded by taxpayers' dollars.

Tendler, who organized a meeting of community rabbis to levy social sanctions against Gribetz just before his breaches became public, described the former politician's behavior as a "chilul haShem," or a desecration of God's name.

His behavior "emasculated our Torah. It reduces or minimizes the claim of Torah, that this is the divine law fit for the human experience. If someone who has been exposed to Torah does these things, what will people say?" said Tendler.

It is the reverse of what a religious Jew is supposed to do, that "the name of God shall be loved by your actions in Kiddush HaShem," said the rabbi,who is also a professor at Yeshiva University and a respected expert on medical ethics.

When a pulpit rabbi is implicated in a breach of ethics, as was the case with Rabbi Fred Neulander, the spiritual leader of Congregation M'kor Shalom, a Reform temple in Cherry Hill, N.J., it can shed light on the congregants' expectations of rabbinic behavior.

Neulander resigned from his position in March, four months after his wife Carol was bludgeoned to death. He has not been arrested, but the police have not ruled him out as a suspect in the ongoing investigation.

In addition, the widespread coverage it has received in the local media "has brought to light Neulander's involvement in marital infidelities," according to the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.

His congregation is reportedly still reeling in shock from the brutal murder and subsequent upheaval.

Should people be more profoundly disappointed by rabbis' failings than those of lay people?

According to Reform Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, "all Jews are expected to behave to a high standard of human conduct."

But "if that's true of all Jews, it's certainly true of clei kodesh," or holy vessels, said Borowitz, meaning that religious Jews have a responsibility for representing the highest ethical standards.

Borowitz is a professor of Jewish religious thought at Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement's seminary in New York City. He also authored a booktitled, "Reform Jewish Ethics and the Halacha."

Leila Gal Berner, a Reconstructionist rabbi and expert on Jewish ethics, said all religious Jews, and especially rabbis, have to guard against "the hubris that comes with the moral authority that people give them."

"When we allow ourselves to fall into a sense of self-importance, moral lapses can happen. In this situation, those involved could have thought that `no one would believe I would do such a thing,'" said Berner, director of the Center for Jewish Ethics at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa.

"Part of the baggage that comes with being a rabbi or religious Jew is the kavod [honor] people give you," she added. "It's very nice, but also aburden. With that sense of hubris, then anything goes."

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METROPOLITAN DESK

Charges Against Rabbi Dropped

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

New York Times - July 7, 1995

Federal prosecutors have dismissed charges against one of two rabbis from Borough Park, Brooklyn, who were accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during a trans-Pacific flight in May, officials said yesterday.

The United States Attorney's office in Los Angeles dropped the complaint of abusive sexual misconduct against Rabbi Israel Grunwald, 44, "without prejudice" -- meaning that the investigation will continue and the charge can be refiled, according to a statement from Assistant United States Attorney Debra W. Yang.

Donald Etra, the rabbi's lawyer, said yesterday, "My client realizes that the charge can be refiled, but the important point is that he is without fault and completely innocent of these charges."

Under Federal law, the Government had until June 29 to indict Rabbi Grunwald or drop the charges.

Rabbi Grunwald, the head of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, a Hungarian Hasidic congregation, and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, 44, were returning to Los Angeles from a lecture tour in Australia on May 31 when the incident occurred aboard a United Air Lines plane.

A 15-year-old girl, seated in the same row as the two men, told authorities that Rabbi Grunwald first reached under her shirt and touched her breast. She said Rabbi Friedlander later exchanged seats with his colleague and repeatedly touched her breast and her vagina while the cabin lights were dimmed during movies and rest periods.

Rabbi Friedlander, who was indicted last month on the more serious charge of sexual abuse of a minor, was placed under house arrest in New York. Federal agents who interviewed Rabbi Friedlander said that he admitted some of the acts, but contended that the girl had encouraged him.

His trial has been set for Aug. 8, Mr. Etra said.

Rabbi Friedlander's lawyer, Michael Abzug, could not be reached for comment.

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Rabbi's aide gets 22 months for molestation
By Tom Tugend
Jerusalem Post - Janurary 22, 1996 

YEHUDAH Friedlander, a New York rabbi's assistant, has been sentenced to 22 months in a federal prison, after having pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a teenage girl during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles last May. 

US District Judge J. Spencer Letts pronounced the sentence after hearing a remorseful statement from Friedlander, the father of five children, and a sobbing plea for mercy from his wife. 

"My reputation and my life as I knew it is gone," said the 44-year-old Friedlander. "What I did to this victim and all the other victims in this case, such as my family, is inexcusable." 

In a nine-page FBI affidavit, Friedlander was accused, in graphic detail, of fondling and groping a 15-year-old American girl during the flight. 

Both he and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested and handcuffed as they stepped off the plane in Los Angeles. Charges against Grunwald, who leads a faction of the Pupa hassidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, were later dropped.

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Rabbi Again Faces Sex Charge
Los Angeles Times - October 8, 1996

Los Angeles - Federal prosecutors have revived their case against a New York rabbi accused of fondling a teen-age girl on an international airline flight. 

The U.S. Attorney's Office yesterday filed a misdemeanor count of abusive sexual contact against Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the leader of a branch of a New York-based Hasidic sect. 

Grunwald faced the same charge last year, but it was dismissed by prosecutors, who retained the option of refiling. "We've just continued our investigation and deemed that it's appropriate to go forward," Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said. 

Rex Beaber, Grunwald's attorney, said his client continues to maintain his innocence. "I believe the refiling is the product of a political decision or some pressure rather than a response to some new or different evidence," Beaber said. 

Grunwald and an assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, were arrested in May, 1995, at Los Angeles International Airport after the 15-year-old girl told authorities the men had molested her on a flight from Australia. Friedlander pleaded guilty to charges and was sentenced to 22 months in prison earlier this year.

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Molestation Charge Refiled Against Rabbi
Los Angeles Times - October 9, 1996

Federal prosecutors have revived their case against a New York rabbi accused of fondling a teenage girl on an international airline flight last year. 

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has filed a misdemeanor count of abusive sexual contact against Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the leader of a branch of a New York-based Hasidic sect. 

Grunwald faced the same charge last year but it was dismissed by prosecutors, who retained the option of refiling. 

Grunwald and an assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, were arrested in May 1995 at Los Angeles International Airport after the 15-year-old girl told authorities the men molested her on a flight from Australia. 

Friedlander pleaded guilty to charges and was sentenced to 22 months in prison this year. The charge against Grunwald carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $5,000 fine.

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Rabbi Pleads Not Guilty in Molestation Case
Los Angeles Times - October 16, 1996 

Rabbi Israel Grunwald pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a federal charge that he fondled a teenage girl on a Los Angeles-bound flight from Australia last year. 

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles filed a misdemeanor count of abusive sexual contact against Grunwald last week. 

The leader of a branch of a New York-based Hasidic sect, Grunwald appeared in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and will remain free on $10,000 bond. The trial date has not been set. 

In a statement, Rex Beaber, Grunwald attorney's, protested the prosecution's decision to proceed with the case. He said his client has provided the government with results of a polygraph test "that indicates his complete innocence with a 99% certainty," as well as sworn declarations from passengers saying that they did not witness any improper acts.

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RABBI: NO FONDLER
Los Angeles Times - October 16, 1996

Los Angeles - Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the leader of a branch of a New York-based Hasidic sect, pleaded not guilty yesterday to a federal charge that he fondled a teenage girl on a flight from Australia last year. 

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles filed a misdemeanor count of abusive sexual contact. Grunwald appeared in U.S. District Court yesterday and will remain free on a $10,000 bond. The trial date has not been set. 

Grunwald's attorney, Rex Beaber, said his client has provided the government with results of a lie detector test "that indicates his complete innocence with a 99 percent certainty," as well as sworn declarations from passengers saying they witnessed nothing improper.

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Lawyer: Sex abuse charge is plot against NY rabbi
By Tom Tugend
Jerusalem Post - September 8, 1997 


LOS ANGELES - Charges that a Brooklyn hassidic rabbi sexually abused a 15-year old girl during a trans-Pacific flight are part of an extortion plot and will be dismissed by federal prosecutors, the man's lawyer claimed over the weekend.
Washington attorney Nathan Lewin, representing Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads a faction of some 100 Pupa Hassidim in Brooklyn's Borough Park, claimed the government had agreed to dismiss the misdemeanor charge of abusive sexual contact with a minor against Grunwald. 

The government, however, insists the trial is on. "The charges are still pending and trial is still set for September 22," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. 

Lewin said he has a written agreement with the US attorney to drop all charges. Mrozek said he could neither confirm or deny this. 

Grunwald and his assistant Yehuda Friedlander, both 44 at the time, were arrested on May 31, 1995 as they stepped off their plane in Los Angeles after an overnight flight from Melbourne, Australia. 

The arrests were based on allegations by a 15-year old girl, with residences in Australia and the US, that during the darkened flight Grunwald had fondled her breasts, followed by Friedlander, who touched her private parts. 

Friedlander, facing a felony charge, subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 22 months' imprisonment. He is due for release in November. 

According to Lewin and a source familiar with the case, the father of the girl contacted a Jewish community leader in Australia last month and said she would retract her court testimony in return for a $1.2 million payment from the hassidic communities in Australia and Brooklyn. 

This information ultimately reached Lewin, who notified federal authorities. On August 24, two days before a previously scheduled trial date, an FBI undercover agent, posing as a friend of Grunwald, turned over a "down payment" of $50,000 to the girl's father in Burbank, California. 

Lewis said he hopes the US Attorney's Office would "vigorously prosecute all parties involved in the attempted extortion of the Jewish communities in Melbourne and Brooklyn." The New York Post has reported "real anger" in the Brooklyn hassidic community over the government's failure to arrest the father.

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Rabbi Cleared, Lawyer Says

By Dan Morrison
Newsday - September 11, 1997

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have agreed to drop sex-abuse charges against a Brooklyn Hasidic rabbi after his alleged victim and her father were caught in an FBI extortion sting, the rabbi's attorney said yesterday. 

Rabbi Israel Grunwald, leader of a 100-member offshoot of the Hasidic Pupa movement, was accused in 1995 in Los Angeles federal court of molesting the 15-year-old on a United Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles. 

Yesterday, Grunwald's lawyer, calling the charges a sham, said the rabbi had been the victim of an extortion attempt that the FBI foiled in August. 

Defense attorney Nathan Lewin said the alleged shakedown included "not only the father, but the daughter, who I think was involved in it, who I know was involved in it, and who I think actively participated in it." Lewin said prosecutors have signed an agreement to drop the sex-abuse charges against Grunwald. 

Federal authorities refused to comment and said no arrest had been made in the alleged extortion.
The young woman's father denied the extortion charges. 

In an FBI sting conducted in the early morning hours of Aug. 24 in a Burbank, Calif. parking lot, the girl's father allegedly took $50,000 from Rabbi Ephraim Stein of Borough Park, a friend of Grunwald's, as a downpayment on the alleged victim's silence, sources close to the case said. The father was asking for $1.3 million, sources said. 

But, unbeknownst to the father, Stein was accompanied by a bearded FBI agent dressed as a Hasidic Jew, the sources said. Stein declined to comment. 

According to a source close to the case, the daughter, now an 18-year-old actress, assured Stein she would not testify. "I happen to be emotionally unfit to go through with it," she told Stein, the source said. 

"She was there during the handover" {of the money}, the source said. 

The girl's father, reached at his Oregon home last week, denied the allegations on behalf of himself and his daughter. "This is not true," he said, "and the Australian and Los Angeles police have been alerted." 

The father, whose name Newsday is withholding to preserve the teenager's anonymity, denied defense claims that he contacted Grunwald and demanded hush money. "We were contacted," he said. The father also declined to provide information about his daughter's whereabouts. 

The 53-year-old declined further comment. "I think it's premature to make a statement," he said. "The truth will come out." 

No charges have been filed against the father. "No one has been arrested," said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney in the Central District of California. 

Mrozek would not discuss the charges against Grunwald. "I have no comment on that right now," he said. John Hoos, a spokesman for the FBI's Los Angeles field office, declined comment. 

Grunwald and an adviser, Yehudah Friedlander, were arrested May 29, 1995, at Los Angeles International Airport for allegedly fondling the 15-year-old on the flight from Melbourne. Sources said she was returning from a visit to her mother. 

Friedlander, 46, pleaded guilty on Oct. 31 of that year to abusive sexual contact, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to 22 months in prison. At his sentencing, the victim said, "He violated me in the deepest possible way."

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Feds: Rabbi May Have Tried To Pay to Stop Sex Charges
By Dan Morrison
Newsday - September 12, 1997

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles said yesterday that a Brooklyn Hasidic rabbi accused of molesting a teen-age girl on a trans-Pacific flight in 1995 may have tried to pay the girl not to testify.
In a one-page statement, Nora Manella, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said representatives of Rabbi Israel Grunwald "approached the victim's family over a year and a half ago and attempted to dispose of the matter through a monetary payment." 

The U.S. attorney added: "There is additional evidence that a private investigator acting on behalf of the rabbi subsequently spoke to the victim's father in an attempt to resolve both civil and criminal liability through a monetary payment." 

Grunwald and an aide were charged in 1995 with misdemeanor sex charges for allegedly molesting the then-15-year-old girl on a flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles. The aide pleaded guilty that year. 

Newsday reported yesterday that Grunwald's attorney, Nathan Lewin, said federal prosecutors had agreed to drop the sex-abuse charges against Grunwald and that the alleged victim and her father had been caught in an FBI "sting" trying to extort money from the rabbi. 

Lewin was not available for comment yesterday. 

Ed Medvene, also an attorney for Grunwald, maintained yesterday that prosecutors had signed an agreement to drop the sex charges. 

Manella's statement said that even though "the government believes the rabbi committed the crime with which he was charged," her office "has agreed to defer prosecution." 

The U.S. attorney's statement said that the rabbi had signed a statement that prosecutors had "sufficient evidence from which a jury could find him guilty" of the sex offense. Grunwald had agreed to do 500 hours of community service and receive counseling, the prosecutor said. 

Medvene said Grunwald admitted no wrongdoing in the agreement. 

"The rabbi had no knowledge of any of the details of the attempted extortion," Medvene said. "For the U.S. Attorney's office to imply anything to the contrary is irresponsible, particularly in light of . . . an FBI report in their possession and in our possession." 

According to what Medvene said was an FBI report recounting an agent's interview with the alleged victim, she "promised not to testify in exchange for the money. She said that she feels it was wrong to accept the $50,000. She said that she understood it was a criminal act to obstruct justice." 

No charges have been brought in connection with the alleged extortion attempt. 

The father denied the extortion claim last week. His name is being withheld to protect the identity of the alleged victim.
 

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Deal to Drop Sex Charge Against Rabbi Unravels; Courts: Defense assails U.S. prosecutors, who say they were responding to inaccurate statements

By Douglas Shuit
Los Angeles Times - September 13, 1997

A deal that would have led to the dropping of a sexual misconduct charge against a New York rabbi who was accused of fondling a 15-year-old girl during an international airline flight turned into a tangle of claims and counterclaims Friday. 

In blistering public statements, attorneys for Rabbi Israel Grunwald attacked U.S. Atty. Nora M. Manella of Los Angeles for "false, unethical and outrageous" statements that they said broke the spirit of an agreement to drop a misdemeanor charge against the religious leader. 

While rebutting Manella, they released details of what they said was an FBI sting involving a $50,000 payoff by members of the Jewish community to the victim and her father. Both sides accuse the other of initiating the idea for a payoff. 

Under the proposed settlement with the rabbi, Grunwald reportedly agreed to perform 500 hours of community service unrelated to his congregation and undergo psychological counseling. 

Manella, in outlining the deal Thursday, set off the lawyers for Grunwald by saying that "the United States believes the rabbi committed the crime." Manella added that Grunwald had "signed a statement acknowledging that the government possesses sufficient evidence from which a jury could find him guilty of that crime." 

The comments, said West Los Angeles attorney Edward M. Medvene, violated the spirit of the deal and distorted Grunwald's position that "he specifically denied responsibility." 

"Why the government saw fit to escalate this matter I don't know," Medvene said. 

Nathan Lewin, one of Grunwald's attorneys, said in a statement from his Washington office that Grunwald had "refused to sign any statement that admitted the allegation." 

Calling the conduct of the U.S. attorney's office a "shameful" effort to "smear Rabbi Grunwald's reputation," Lewin said Manella's office should take the unusual step of withdrawing from the case and turning it over to an independent federal prosecutor. 

"It's not going to happen," said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for Manella. "We have no intention of withdrawing from this case because we didn't do anything that was unethical." 

Mrozek said the U.S. attorney's statement was issued because "we thought we had to make some response to what we thought were inaccurate statements" by the defense attorneys. 

Grunwald's attorneys, meanwhile, pressed their contention that the victim and her father were involved in "an extortion attempt" that consisted of demands of cash in return for the young woman's agreement not to testify. 

According to the defense attorneys, payoffs of $800,000 and $1.3 million were discussed. 

Medvene said he was present in Burbank on Aug. 24 when government agents met with the young woman and her father and an initial payment of $50,000 was made. 

The $50,000 was to be a down payment on a much larger amount, the defense attorneys said. The money was handed over to the young woman on a parking lot outside a Starbucks by Rabbi Ephraim Stein of Brooklyn, a friend of Grunwald's, Medvene said. 

Government agents seized the money once the exchange was made, but no charges were filed. One of the FBI agents wore a yarmulke to enhance the deception, Medvene said. 

The FBI and U.S. attorney's office refused to discuss the alleged sting. 

A criminal investigation is continuing into the actions of the young woman and her father, a source close to the case said. 

Grunwald was accused of molesting the then-15-year-old girl during a flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles in 1995. The girl contended in interviews with authorities that she persistently tried to fend off the advances of the rabbi, a leader of a branch of a New York-based Hasidic sect. 

Yehuda Friedlander, an assistant of Grunwald's who was on the same flight, pleaded guilty to abusive sexual contact with a minor and received a 22-month prison sentence.

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Rabbi charged with molesting teen to do community service
By Tom Tugend 
Jerusalem Post - September 22, 1997 

LOS ANGELES - The trial of Brooklyn Rabbi Israel Grunwald, on a charge that he groped a teenage girl, is off. 

Grunwald's trial was to begin yesterday, but if he satisfactorily completes 500 hours of community service and submits to psychological counseling, the charge will be permanently dismissed after one year. 

Grunwald, who leads a group of Pupa Hassidim, and his assistant, Yehuda Friedlander, were arrested on May 31, 1995, as they stepped off their plane at Los Angeles International Airport, following an overnight flight from Melbourne. 

The arrests were based on allegations by a then 15- year-old girl that during the flight, Grunwald had fondled her breasts, while Friedlander touched her private parts. 

Friedlander subsequently pleaded guilty to a felony charge and is serving a 22-month prison term.
In an acrimonious exchange of faxes on September 12, the two sides exchanged accusations of attempted extortion and pay-offs, as well as broken commitments, and cited an FBI sting operation during which an undercover agent allegedly "disguised" himself by wearing a kippa. The exchange of heated statements was initiated by Grunwald's attorney, Nathan Lewin of Washington, D.C. Lewin said that the government had dismissed the charge against his client, adding that the father of the girl had attempted to extort $800,000 to $2 million from the hassidic communities in Melbourne and Brooklyn, and promised in return that his daughter would not testify against Grunwald. 

Lewin went into details about a meeting in Burbank, California, on August 24, two days before Grunwald's original trial date, in which $50,000 in cash was turned over to the father and daughter as "down payment." 

US Attorney Nora M. Manella in Los Angeles responded with a statement that the charges against Grunwald remained in place and that he had acknowledged that "the government possesses sufficient evidence from which a jury could find him guilty." (Lewin categorically denied that Grunwald had signed such an acknowledgment.) Manella added, however, that the government would defer prosecution if the rabbi met the conditions of 500 hours of community service unrelated to his congregation, and psychological counseling. Manella also claimed that on two occasions, representatives of Grunwald contacted the girl's father offering an undisclosed amount of money to settle the case.

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Rabbi escapes teen fondling charges
Associated Press - September 23, 1997

Amid claims that its key witness took a bribe, federal prosecutors agreed Monday to drop charges against a morality-lecturing rabbi accused of fondling a 15-year-old girl on a Melbourne-to-Los Angeles flight. 

However, Rabbi Israel Grunwald will have to serve a year's "diversion" and do 500 hours of community service unrelated to his congregation and undergo psychological counseling. 

Grunwald was accused of fondling the teen-ager during a May 31, 1995, flight. He had gone to Australia to deliver lectures on morality. If convicted, the rabbi faced up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

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Sex Charge Against Rabbi to Be Dropped; Courts: Allegations that Hasidic leader fondled girl on flight will be dismissed if he completes community service
By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - September 23, 1997

Federal prosecutors have agreed to drop sex abuse charges against a New York Hasidic leader if he performs 500 hours of community service and undergoes counseling. 

During a brief court hearing Monday in Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman placed Rabbi Israel Grunwald in a pretrial diversion program that will, if he successfully completes it, result in the dismissal of charges that he fondled a teenage girl on an airline flight between Australia and Los Angeles. 

"In light of all the circumstances, it seems to be a fair resolution of a misdemeanor case," Assistant U.S. Atty. Patricia Donahue said after the court session. 

Those circumstances include an alleged shakedown attempt by the teenager, who authorities say last month agreed not to testify against the rabbi in exchange for payoffs from the Jewish community. 

On Monday, Grunwald's attorney, Edward Medvene, reiterated that his client had admitted no wrongdoing. "He denies any guilt," Medvene said. "He didn't do anything wrong. . . . There's nobody that observed Rabbi Grunwald do anything improper." 

But Donahue noted that in the diversion agreement, Grunwald acknowledges there is enough evidence for a jury to conclude that the alleged offenses took place. 

"The fact that {the teenager is} willing to accept money not to testify doesn't change the fact that she's been saying since May 31, 1995, that this sexual misconduct took place," Donahue said. 

Grunwald and an assistant were arrested that day at Los Angeles International Airport at the end of a flight from Australia during which, the teenager said, the two men fondled her as she sat near them.

Although the assistant eventually pleaded guilty to felony sex abuse charges and was sentenced to 22 months in prison, Grunwald, the leader of a branch of a small Hasidic sect in Brooklyn, maintained his innocence. 

His case has taken several twists and turns over the last two years. Prosecutors dropped the charges against Grunwald not long after filing them, but revived them a year later. 

Then, just before the case was scheduled to go to trial last month, the girl and her father met in a Burbank parking lot with a friend of Grunwald and--unbeknown to them--an undercover FBI agent. 

"The girl and her father accepted {$50,000} in exchange for her agreement that she would not testify," Donahue said. "She didn't want to come to court and testify. She said she would state she was emotionally unable to do so." 

Authorities say representatives of Grunwald initiated the payoff talks. Grunwald's attorneys insist that the girl's mother first raised the possibility of resolving the matter outside of court in 1995 and that the girl's father this year demanded $800,000 to $1.3 million to buy the girl's silence. 

In court documents, Medvene says the girl's father described the $50,000 exchanged in Burbank as "a good faith gesture." 

No charges have been filed in the alleged payoff, but Donahue said there is an investigation into "what appears to be the obstruction of justice" by the girl and her father. 

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Sex Charges Against Rabbi Dropped 

Post Dispatch (St. Louis) - September 23, 1997

 
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles agreed Monday to drop charges against a rabbi accused of fondling a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia. 

In the deal worked out in the chambers of U.S. District Court Judge James Ideman, Rabbi Israel Grunwald must perform 500 hours of community service and undergo counseling. 

Grunwald had been accused of fondling the girl during a May 31, 1995, flight from Melbourne, Australia. In January 1996, his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was sentenced to 22 months in prison for molesting the same girl on the plane. 

In the deal, revealed by both the defense attorney and the federal prosecutor, the government agreed to drop the charges against Grunwald once he successfully completes the community service and counseling.

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Rabbi gets community service and counseling

Associated Press - September 25, 1997

LOS ANGELES –– Rabbi gets community service and counseling. Rabbi Israel Grunwald, accused of fondling a 15-year-old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia, has had the charge against him dropped after agreeing to perform 500 hours of community service and to seek counseling.

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Pupa Rabbi: Yisrael Menachem Grunwald From B.P. - Video

Youtube - August 16, 2008

Part 1

Part 2

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Pupa Boys Camp Singing For The Pupa Rabbi (Yisrael Menachem Grunwald) - Video

YouTube - July 23, 2009

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