Washington Jewish Week - November 17, 2005
Rabbi David Kaye has resigned from Conservative Judaism's
rabbinical association, but the title of "rabbi" cannot be taken away from
him.
Such a designation is earned when one graduates from
rabbinical school, according to leaders in the Conservative and Reconstructionist
movement.
Kaye submitted his resignation to the Rabbinical Assembly
a few days before the airing of the Nov. 4 Dateline NBC hidden camera
investigation of sexual predators on the Internet in which he was
ensnared.
A former rabbi at Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac,
Kaye also resigned his position with the teen educational group Panim: The
Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values due to the Dateline program.
Rabbi Joel Meyers, the R.A.'s executive vice president,
said that giving up membership in the organization essentially means that
Kaye is "no longer a member of the Conservative rabbinate" and "can't function
as a Conservative rabbi."
The Awareness Center, an organization advocating for
the rights of sexual abuse victims in the Jewish community, has been urging
its supporters to ask that Kaye's s'micha, or rabbinic ordination, be revoked.
But Meyers said that "we can't take his s'micha away" because he "earned
his degrees," and "unless fraud was found in achieving the degree, he has
the degree."
Kaye was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College two decades ago before joining the Conservative movement's rabbinical
association after he was hired at the Conservative Har Shalom. The president
of the RRC, Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, said revoking one's ordination "is not
something we ever do, nor do I think it's doable."
"You can't take away the fact that he successfully
fulfilled the requirements for graduation," said Ehrenkrantz.
He noted that rabbinical groups like the R.A. act as
licensing-type organizations, and losing membership in such a group effectively
tells the public that a rabbi has not conducted himself properly.
He compared the situation to a doctor who engages in
misconduct the physician does not lose the title doctor, but can
lose his or her license.
Kaye, however, would still, for example, be able to
officiate at a wedding if a couple desired.
The rabbi also has left his teaching position at B'nai
Israel Congregation's Hebrew high school, according to the Rockville Conservative
synagogue's Rabbi Jonathan Schnitzer.
Kaye had been teaching a Tuesday evening class for
the post-confirmation class of 11th- and 12th-graders and had led the Shabbat
teen minyan since the beginning of the school year. He resigned those posts
three days before the Dateline program aired, Schnitzer said this week.
Schnitzer said that the teen sessions were "always
in a group" and that the shul had not received any complaints about his
conduct.
Criminal charges are still not expected against Kaye.
A Montgomery County Police Department spokesperon said that it has not received
any criminal complaints or been provided with other information that would
trigger an investigation of the rabbi, although an inquiry could be opened
in the future if such facts did arise.
The Fairfax County Police Department said once again
this week that it still does not anticipate filing charges because of both
jurisdictional issues and reservations about the methods of Perverted Justice,
the group that partnered with Dateline in the investigation. The group's
volunteers pose as children on the Internet in order to expose potential
predators.
Fairfax County police have noted that even though the
alleged predators were lured to a house in Virginia, the Perverted Justice
volunteer chatters were based in Michigan and Kaye and many of the other
alleged predators lived in Maryland. With the alleged crimes crossing state
lines, it is unclear if the FBI could get involved in the case.
A spokesperson for the FBI's Baltimore field office
could not say at this point whether it would be investigated.
No comments:
Post a Comment