Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

This page is dedicated in the memory of Daniel Levin

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged has a 30-year history of sexually assaulting adult women and children

Denver, CO

Winnipeg, Canada

New York, NY

Lakewood, NJ

Vaad Harabonim of Queens - Queens, NY

Principal, Yeshiva Berachel David Torah High School - Queens, NY

Past Member of Rabbinical Council of America (RCA)

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks is an alleged sexual predator, who used cult like practices to lure in unsuspecting victims.  According to reports he's been  sexually assaulting adult women and children (both boys and girls) for over thirty years.

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WARNING: Rabbi Ephraim Bryks and Marriage Counseling

 

Ephraim Bryks has become a rabbinic marriage counselor. The term marriage counselor or life coach can be used by anyone. He is not the only "rabbi" suspected of sexual abuse using one of these titles to access vulnerable individuals or couples both here and in Israel. Consulting actual professionals is expensive and unless the community publicly warns against going to these charlatans (often worse) many innocents will continue to be hurt.

 

Sincerely,

Rabbi Yosef Blau

 

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Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks principal Yeshiva Berachel David Torah High School in Queens, currently serves time as a member of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens (Rabbinical committee that makes important decisions within the community). As of today, there has been no public statement made concerning his decade long membership on the Vaad Harabonim of Queens. On May 27, 2003, he resigned his membership in the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), after being involved for a quarter of a century.

 

Anyone with relevant information regarding the open case in Canada is encouraged to contact the Winnipeg Police at their main phone number: (204) 986-6037.

 

Anyone with relevant information in the United States is encouraged to contact their local police department and their local District Attorney's office, NYPD Switchboard: 646-610-5000 Queens District Attorney's office: 718-286-6000.

 

Rabbi LejzorBryks

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.

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 decade- long 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.).

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The Awareness Center is providing the documentary "Unorthodox Conduct" in the memory of Daniel Levin.  

 

Our hopes is that it will be used as a way to educate the public on the devistating ramifications a case can have on an individual, family and in Jewish communities around the world.  It's important to know what happens when a case of "alleged" childhood sexual abuse in the Jewish community is not dealt with properly from the beginning (bringing the case to law enforcement who is trained and educated in dealing with these cases).

 

Our hopes is that after you view this documentary that you will go to your rabbis and other community leaders and demand that there be changes made when a child makes allegations they were sexually abused/assaulted. We cannot afford for there to be anymore cover-ups when there are allegations that a child has been molested. We cannot afford to let one more child die. Our hopes is that not one more child will feel so desperate that they will take their own lives, as Daniel Levin did.

Please note:  The Investigative documentary: "Unorthodox Conduct"contains graphic information regarding the case against Rabbi Ephriam Bryks. It was produced in 1994 by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW BROADCAST:
http://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2007/11/rabbi-ephraim-bryks-unorthodox-conduct.html

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CALL TO ACTION: Rabbi Ephraim Bryks Lecture Series

February 27, 2008

 

The Awareness Center is asking that everyone contacts Kol Yaakov and demand they remove the lecture series they have provided by alleged sex offender, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. Please let Rubin Kaylyakov, owner of the site know if anyone ends up getting harmed by Bryks after making their initial contact with him by listening to one of the tapes on his web page, he could be held liable in a civil suit -- especially after being warned about this allegedly dangerous man. 

Contact:

Kol Yakov.org

Rubin Kaylyakov

10820 62nd DR, Apt. 2B

Forest Hills, NY 11375

Phone: 9176624957

rubin23@gmail.com

http://kolyakov.org/contact.html

 

TorahAnytime.com

Rubin Kay

71-28A Main Street

Flushing, New York 11367

917-662-4957

rubin23@gmail.com

 

Computer Doctor

Attn. TorahAnytime

71-28a Main Street, Flushing, NY 11367

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CALL TO ACTION: The Awareness Center is asking you Contact: Rabbi Paysach Krohn and Demand he stop promoting alleged child molester, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. Remind him if another child is harmed that he could be held liable in a civil suit.

November 13, 2007 

Rabbi PaysachKrohn, Certified Mohel

E-mail: pkrohn@brisquest.com

Toll Free: 866-846-6900

NY: 718-846-6900

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CALL TO ACTION: Asking Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun Synagogue to have the plaque removed honoring Rabbi Ephraim Bryks.

October 10, 2004

 

Contact Information:  

Rabbi Tzvi Muller at Herzlia - Adas YeshurunSynagogue

620 Brock St., Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3N 0Z4

Phone: (204) 489-6262    Fax: (204) 489-5899

email: herzlia2000@yahoo.ca 

This past Yom Kippur marked the 13th anniversary of the suicide of Daniel Levin an alleged victim of Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks. It is a difficult time in particular for his family and friends as Daniel's alleged abuser has never been brought to real justice (if such a thing is even possible at this point) and continues to thrive and work with women and children, not in some small Jewish community but in the New York Orthodox Jewish community.

 

The Winnipeg Jewish community and Bryks' former Orthodox Union affiliated synagogue, Herzlia Adas Yeshurun (the site of Daniel's abuse), continue to refuse any acknowledgment or responsibility. No apology, no compassion. A plaque honoring Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks remains on the synagogue's "Tree of Life." All Daniel has is a tombstone in a cemetery.

 

The Awareness Center Has A Call to Action asking everyone to contact Herzlia Adas Yeshurun and ask them to remove the plaque, and perhaps replace it with a plaque honoring the memory of Daniel Levin (see contact information above). 

 

Sincerely,

Vicki Polin, MA, ATR, LCPC

Executive Director - The Awareness Center

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Table of Contents:
 

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

 

General

1. Summary of Case (02/20/2003)
2. Primrose Path
3. Resume of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks
4. The New York State Administrators Listing for Public and Non-Public Schools and School Districts
5. Rabbi Paysach Krohn, Rabbi Lipa Brenner and Alleged Sex Offender, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks  (11/13/2007)
   • Around The Magid's Table, by Paysach Krohn
     

Timeline

1981

1. Herzlia Dinner To Honor Rabbi Ephraim Bryks (12/06/1981)

1984

1. Bryks Bio from Rabbi J.J. Khanovitch Memorial Journal on occasion of the 67th Anniversary of the Vaad Ha'ir  (5744/1984)

1985  

1. When Parents Mourn  (02/26/1985)
2. Credentials (05/16/1985)

1987

1. Jewish World Mourns Loss of Rosh Yeshiva  (08/13/1987)

1988

1. Child and Family Service Report  (03/23/1988)
2. Synagogue backs rabbi in tickling dispute - Rabbi's supporters, detractors clash at information meeting (03/29/1988)
3. Torah Academy (03/31/1988)
4. After Reviewing Parent Complaints against Principal . . . Department Recommends Sex Education at Torah Academy  (08/06/1988)
5. Open letter to parents of Torah Academy By Cheryl Greenberg   (12/1988)
6. Torah Academy Tours Israel  (12/1988)

1990

1. Ephraim Bryks Letter  (01/16/1990)
2. Mark Schulman letter (01/16/1990)

1994

1. Investigative documentary: "Unorthodox Conduct"  (02/28/1994)
   
2. CBC report re-opens Bryks controversy  (03/09/1994)
3. Shame! CBC Alleges Rabbi is Child Molester   (03/1994)
4. CBC threatened with lawsuit for report on Winnipeg rabbi (05/04/1994)
5. More Allegations of Sexual Abuse Involving Rabbi: Police Probe Resumes At School - "Jews need to know that this can happen to us" (08/04/1994)

1995 

1. Bryks launches lawsuit in U.S. court against CBC, CNN  (03/08/1995)
2. CBC scores bronze medal for "Unorthodox Conduct" - CBC strikes it rich at N.Y. awards (01/30/1995)
3. Civil Procedure: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Immune (03/15/1995)
4. A former Winnipeg rabbi accused of sexual misconduct with students is suing C-B-C and C-N-N (03/21/1995) 
5. Bryks v. CBC (12/12/1995) 
6. Libel chill leaves children's author feeling censored OPINIONS / Carol Matas's novel about a Jewish school and a child-abusing rabbi touched a nerve in Winnipeg. A synagogue cancelled her appearance amid threats of litigation  (12/19/1995)

1996

1. Editorial comment - A Second look at "Unorthodox Conduct" (01/06/1996)
2. Torts: CNN Did Not Defame Rabbi by Rebroadcasting Report  (07/02/1996)
3. Jurisdiction in defamation action against Canadian Broadcasting Corp  (08/1996)

1997

1. Entertainment Law Reporter Bryks v. CNN  (07/1997)
2. Shearis Israel Academy - About Us
   • Shearis Israel Academy- Programs
   • Shearis Israel Academy - Support Us!
   • Shearis Israel Academy - Board of Directors
   • Shearis Israel Academy - Contact US

2001

1. Queens Yeshiva Boss is a Molester:  Boy's Mom   (03/31/2001)
2. Canadian legal filings -  Legal Documentation

2003

1. Battling a 'Ghost' From Past  (05/26/2003)
2. Dogged By Allegations, Rabbi Quits - Rabbi Maintains Denial Of Any Wrongdoing  (05/28/2003)
3. Rabbi quits under cloud - Dogged by sex-abuse allegations  (05/30/2003)
4. Rabbi Resigns Amid Sex Abuse AllegationsRabbi Resigns Amid Sex Abuse Allegations  (05/30/2003)
5. Orthodox Rabbis To Report Abuse   (06/06/2003)
6. Clarification to letter in Jewish Post and News Winnipeg
7. Rabbi's visit canceled amid abuse allegations - The Jewish community in D.M. received e-mails accusing the man of a history of child abuse  (11/14/2003)
8. Accused rabbi dropped  (11/17/2003)
9. Iowa Synagogue Nixes Queens Rabbi's Speech  (11/19/2003)
10. Ragsdale: More faith communities struggle with alleged child sexual abuse  (11/22/2003)

2004

1. Call to Action: Asking Herzlia - Adas Yeshurun Synagogue to have the plaque removed honoring Rabbi Ephraim Bryks   (10/10/2004)
   • Letter from Mordechai Bobrowsky to Rabbi Muller  (10/16/2004)
     
   • Letter from Zev Zlotnick to Rabbi Muller  (10/18/2004)
     

2007

1. 9th Annual Shabbaton Getaway! Hudson Valley Resort   (06/22-24/2007)
   
2. CALL TO ACTION: Rabbi Paysach Krohn Promoting Rabbi Ephraim Bryks  (11/13/2007)
   

2008

1. CALL TO ACTION: Rabbi Ephraim Bryks Lecture Series   (02/27/2008)

2011

1. The story that continues to haunt our community: Rabbi Bryks to be subject matter of episode of new documentary series for vision TV (01/05/2011)
2. Rabbi Charles Grysman in T.O Goes on the Record RE: Rabbi Bryks  (05/12/2011)

Other Cases Involving Past Students From Ner Israel Yeshiva (Baltimore, MD):

1. The Case of the Students of Ner Israel Yeshiva in the 1950's
2. Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks
3. Case of Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum
4. Case of Rabbi Aron Tendler
5. Case of Rabbi Matis Weinberg
   

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Summary of the Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

Keefler:  That was just the first time lawyers would jump to Bryks' defence. Within weeks, the rabbi again faced serious accusations, his reputation on the line; spiritual leader, school principal, suspected of questionable behaviour with students.

(© 2003) The Awareness Center

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"

___________________________________________________________________________________

  

Herzlia Dinner To Honor Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

The Jewish Press - December 6, 1981

 

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When Parents Mourn A Joyous Occasion

By Susan Yellen
Philadelphia Inquirer (Associated Press) - Feb. 26, 1985; pg. D9

The Yaffes had disowned their daughter. 

About all most North American Jews have heard of "disownment" - whereby parents consider their child dead and observe the traditional seven days of mourning - probably comes from the popular stage and film musical Fiddler on the Roof. In it, an anguished Tevye acts as if his youngest daughter has died when she marries a non-Jew. 

"But even in Fiddler on the Roof, when they were leaving, he turned around and said something to her before they left," said Shawna, whose real name appeared in the obituary but who asked that it be kept confidential. 

She said her parents' action was not unexpected, that she felt it coming five years ago when she started to date the man who is now her husband. 

She said she had known from childhood that, should she marry out of the faith, some members of her family - especially her father - would disassociate themselves from her. 

The religious background of the now-rare action rests in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 7:3, in which God instructs the Jews, before they cross the Jordan River, not to marry non-Jewish inhabitants to avoid being swayed to serve other gods. 

"I think the philosophy behind it (disowning) is a way of . . . impressing upon our young adults the importance of keeping the Jewish faith alive and furthering the Jewish faith in its cause," said Orthodox Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Winnipeg. 

Rabbi Bryks, who acted as mediator between Shawna and her parents before she was married, pointed out that the case was unusual - that "it may happen only once" in every 100, or even 1,000, cases of intermarriage. 

"But it does happen in the rare case where the family is very, very committed to the furtherance of their Jewish values and where they feel they've been betrayed by one of their own children," he said in an interview. 

Two other Winnipeg rabbis, who said that they had no knowledge of Shawna's case, commented that the obituary was inexcusable. 

"They shamed themselves," said Rabbi Eugene Wernick of a Conservative synagogue, "and they shamed the Jewish faith, because that's not what Judaism is all about." 

Wernick suggested that the parents should adhere to the religious precept that Jews "be lovers of peace and pursuers of peace" and, "though they may not condone what their child has done, they should offer their unconditional love. What happens if she really did die - would they really want to see her dead and throw the dirt on her casket?" 

Rabbi Tracy Klirs of a Reform congregation said she opposed intermarriage and would refuse to marry a Jew to a non-Jew, but she strongly disapproved of the parents' action: "Nothing in the world can justify that kind of behavior on the part of parents, any more than children who denounce their own parents. There's so much in Judaism that we have to elevate and preserve . . . but this is nothing but destructiveness." 

All three rabbis said they felt that more than a stringent belief in the Jewish faith was behind the parents' rationale in disowning Shawna, and that much depended on the relationship between daughter and parents. 

Shawna herself agreed that might be true. "My father and I haven't had a good relationship for a long time," she said on a visit to Winnipeg from Toronto, where she now lives. 

"I think if my father and I had had a better relationship for the last 10 years, I might not have been able to go through with it," she said. 

Her father refused to discuss the matter with a reporter.

___________________________________________________________________________________

   
Bryks Bio from Rabbi J.J. Khanovitch Memorial Journal on occasion of the 67th Anniversary of the Vaad Ha'ir 
 (5744/1984)

Alleged Sexual Predator - Rabbi Ephraim Bryks' Bio

___________________________________________________________________________________

    
Credentials

Thursday, May 16, 1985

 

To: Mr. David Stitz

Winnipeg, Manitoba

 

Dear Dave;

I wish to thank you for meeting with members of my synagogue over the past few weeks with the hope to resolve many of the issues outstanding. I would like to share with you the enclosed documents since I feel my credibility has been questioned concerning my smicha's.

 

Document #1 was my first smicha granted to me in Nisan 1973. It is from Rabbi Israel Grossman who is a member of the Agudath Yisroel Beth Din in Jerusalem. I went to the Beth Din since I wanted my smicha's to come from a recognized organization.

 

Document #2 is my smicha from the head of the yeshiva where I studied for five years in Jerusalem. It is from Rabbi Schwartzman and it was an honour receiving it since very few people in the world have a smicha from him.

 

Document #3 is from Rabbi M. Zioni head of the Beth Din in Tel Aviv where I was trained and worked for close to a year in marital law ang 'gittin'. Rabbi Zioni is a very honoured and revered man, now in his 70's and it was a great honour receiving smicha from him.

 

Document #4 is a letter of recomendation from the Beth Din in Tel Aviv where I worked. The individual now in charge of all communications with the communities outside of Israel is Rabbi Dovid Einhorn.

 

Document #5 is a smicha from Rabbi J. Frank, Chief Rabbi and head of the Beth Din of Haifa. I went to him in order to receive smicha from the head / member of the Beth Din's of Israel's three major centre's.

 

Document #6 is my fifth smicha from Rabbi Milevsky. Rabbi Milevsky who was living in Jerusalem was recommended to me as an expert in the laws of Gittin. He was retired and very well respected. It was a pleasure studying with the man for close to two years three times a week. The wording of the different smicha's are very beautiful and I hope you will have them read to you and translated.  All can be verified and I welcome you to. My closest ties are with my Rosh Yeshiva and the Beth Din of Tel Aviv.

 

I would like to say that I am proud of my service to the Va'ad over the last few years. I have always believed that I was reasonable and at least a mentch. I also acknowledge with sincere gratitude the time and effort you have put in. Even when we differed I was pleased to work with you. I look forward to a positive resolution to the current issues so we can return to the task at hand and the challenges of tomorrow.

 

Wishing you and your family a Shabbat Shalom.

 

Respectfully,

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

___________________________________________________________________________________

   
Jewish World Mourns Loss of Rosh Yeshiva

Article by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Noting he spent 8 years at Ner Israel, in Baltimore, MD.

The Jewish Post and News - Thursday, August 13, 1987

By Ephraim Bryks

 

Article marking the passing of Rabbi Bryks' Rosh Yeshiva (Rabbi Yaakov Rudderman who is Rabbi Matis Weinberg's grandfather). He notes he spent 8 years at Ner Israel Baltimore.

 

If you look closely, only the 1st paragraph is by Bryks, the rest is reproduced from the Jewish Press.

___________________________________________________________________________________

    
Resume of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

___________________________________________________________________________________

    
The New York State Administrators Listing for Public and Non-Public Schools and School Districts

District: NYC COMM SD #28

SCHOOL: YESHIVA BERACHEL DAVID-TORAH HS-QUEE

Code: 342800229718

http://www.nysed.gov/admin/342800/229718.html

Record Type: Non-Public         Grade Organization: Senior High

Chief School Officer: PRINCIPAL-RABBI EPHRAIM BRYKS

Mailing Address: 150-62 78TH RD

FLUSHING, NY 11367

Phone: (718) 849-4140

Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - click on image to enlarge

___________________________________________________________________________________

  

Child and Family Service Report - March 23, 1988

 

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

(204) 945-6964

 

March 23, 1988

 

Re: Allegations Regarding Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

 

This letter is to advise you of the findings of the investigation by Winnipeg South Child and Family Services into complaints received by the Department of Community Services regarding Rabbi E. Bryks.

 

The investigative process undertaken by Winnipeg South Child and Family Services involved contact by phone and in person with 45 individuals including students, former students, parents of students attending Torah Academy, the vice-principal of the school, current Board members, past Board members, Rabbi Bryks, and several of his rabbinical colleagues.

 

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.

 

The report also makes reference to a number of concerns related to the process of investigation undertaken by the Board of Herzlia Synagogue. I have requested that Mr. Barney Yellen, Executive Director of Jewish Child and Family Service, review the following recommendations with the Board of Torah Academy and Herzlia Synagogue.

1. 1. Torah Academy and Herzlia Synagogue to date have not developed protocols around the dealing of abuse within the school whether an alleged offender be a student, parent, relative, staff of the school or total stranger. Consistent with the expectations of the Department of Education, it is felt that it is essential that such protocols be developed immediately so that the painful process resulting from the Board trying to do its own investigation does not occur for any student ever again.
   

   
   

2. In consulting with Jewish Child and Family Service, it would appear that Torah Academy has never made any referral to them for an investigation of abuse. It was found that the staff and the parents were very lacking in any awareness of the predominance of abuse within our society and the staff very unaware of behavioural indicators of physical, sexual or emotional abuse.  Extensive inservicing for the staff on this issue is recommended.
   

   
   

3. It was noted in interviewing the students, an extreme naivety to issues of sexual abuse and lack of awareness of basic street proofing concepts.  Again, inservicing for the students and for the parents is recommended as being necessary within this area.
   

   
   

4. It is recommended that a program that addresses the issue of what are acceptable and unacceptable touches such as the "Feeling Yes, Feeling No" program would be appropriate for the Board to consider. This is not only because of the naivety issue raised in the previous paragraph but because of our concern of the lack of clarity around this caused by the reactions to allegations by all the families within the Academy. Additionally, it is our concern that if there is a child in the school that is currently being abused, the dynamics of the reactions of staff, fellow students and other adults over the past couple of months might prevent any child from coming forth with the disclosure. We feel some clear action is necessary to undo the potential damage in this area.

The full report of Winnipeg South Child and Family Services will not be shared with the Board of Directors, Rabbi Bryks or the complaintants as it is necessary to protect the confidentiality of those children and parents named in the report.

 

Please call me direct should you wish to discuss this letter further.

 

Your truly,

 

Jim Bakken, Director - Child and Family Services

 

c: Honourable Maureen Hemphill, Minister of Community Services

Barney Yellen, Jewish Child and Family Service

 

George Penwarden, Winnipeg South Child and Family Services

___________________________________________________________________________________

     

Synagogue backs rabbi in tickling dispute - Rabbi's supporters, detractors clash at information meeting

by: Janet McFarland

Winnipeg Free Press - March 29, 1988

Front Page (continued page 4)

 

A Community Services review has recommended establishing extensive sex education programs at the Torah Academy after girls at the private school complained about its principal.

 

More than 20 children have been pulled from the Jewish elementary school and as many families have stopped attending the synagogue that runs the Brock Avenue school, parents said in interviews last night.

 

A Community Services letter obtained by the Free Press says Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of the Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun Synagogue tickled and kissed female students, but it said there was no evidence to support criminal charges or charges under the Child and Family Services Act.

 

Bryks said in an interview yesterday his style of teaching is warm and personal, but not inappropriate.

 

"This school welcomes that kind of conduct because that's what this school is. It's a warm, affectionate place for children," he said.

 

"I feel that I have performed in my capacity of rabbi of the synagogue and principal of the school with the full support of the (synagogue) board of directors."

 

The letter to the synagogue's board, signed by Jim Bakken, director of Child and Family Services, called Bryks' actions inappropriate and recommended extensive training for staff, parents and children at the school.

 

It also recomended immediately establishing a school policy to deal with abuse to avoid having the synagogue's board try to review any further allegations itself.

 

The board looked at the matter for several months before turning to Community Services, and only did so because it could not reach a consensus on what to do.

 

The letter also said the school needs a program such as the Feeling Yes, Feeling No campaign to teach what types of touching is appropriate.

 

"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 behavior," it said.

 

The letter said students at the school were extremely naive about issues of sexual abuse and lacked basic street proofing concepts, while staff and parents needed extensive training of the predominance of abuse within society and on how to recognize the behavioral indicators of physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

 

The letter said the full report on the review would not be given to the board, the rabbi or the complainants to protect the confidentiality of the children and parents involved.

 

At an information meeting held yesterday at the synagogue to discuss the Community Services review of the situation, the synagogue's board told about 150 people in attendance it supports Bryks as the synagogue's rabbi and as the synagogue's rabbi and as the school's principal.

 

About 15 parents left the meeting after they were shouted down when they attempted to ask questions.

 

Later, one parent said she has taken her children from the school and wants to see the rabbi fired.

 

"He doesn't have the right to tickle them or to have them sit in his lap," she said.

 

"I don't think it's appropriate for a 14-year-old girl to sit in a rabbi's lap."

 

She said teachers in public schools are told to be warm and supportive without making physical contact with the students.

 

"People think because he's a rabbi, he's special, he's beyond reproach. When he does it, it's some kind of blessing." she said.

 

"I can tell you when it happened to my daughter, she was very embarrassed by it and very disturbed by it.".

 

She said her daughter didn't anything until other girls began to complain, because she thought she couldn't go to the school anymore if she did.

 

Supporters of the rabbi clashed yesterday with those parents who questioned his actions, telling the meeting he has the right to be affectionate and they welcome it.

 

"I would rather see him kiss a child than strap her hand," one grandmother told the almost universally supportive crowd.

 

The Community Services Department letter said it is concerned by the reaction of the families and said it caused their investigation to lack clarity.

 

"It is our concern that if there is a child in the school that is currently being abused, the dynamics of the reactions of staff, fellow students and other adults over the past couple of months might prevent any child from coming forth with the disclosure," the letter said.Parents said 20 of the school's 140 students have left since December and others will leave after the school year ends in June. They said many families have stopped attending the synagogue.

 

Board chairman Joel Mosolvsky said he could not confirm how many families or children have left.

 

Bryks said he hoped the community will pull together again and resolve its problems.

"I believe it's going to require from all involved a certain mending of bridges.".

___________________________________________________________________________________

     
Torah Academy

Canadian Press - March 31, 1988

 

Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged Sexual Predator

WINNIPEG (CP) -- A private Jewish school will implement a program to teach students about sexual abuse following complaints from several female students about the school's principal.

 

Joel Maslovsky, chairman of the Torah Academy's board, said theboard fully accepts a recommendation by the province's Community Services Department in favor of the program.

 

Community Services conducted a review of the school and its principal, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, following complaints by female students that Bryks had tickled and hugged them.

 

The department said although Bryks did tickle female students, kiss them on the head, hug them and have them sit on his lap, there was no evidence to support criminal charges against the principal.

 

The board did recommend, however, the implementation of a sexual abuse prevention program and training for teachers so they could identify signs of physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

___________________________________________________________________________________

     
After Reviewing Parent Complaints against Principal ...Department Recommends Sex Education at Torah Academy

The Jewish Post & News - Wednesday, April 6, 1988

Page 1 (continued page 19)

 

The provincial Department of Community Services has recommended Torah Academy establish sex education programs after one parent complained about the conduct of the principal, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, with several female students.

 

A story in the March 29 Winnipeg Free Press, headlined "Synagogue backs rabbi in tickling dispute", said the provincial Department of Community Services "has recommended establishing sex education programs at the Torah Academy."

 

A community services letter obtained by the Free Press says Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of the Herzalia- Adas Yeshurun Synagogue tickled and kissed female students, but it said there was no evidence to support criminal charges or changes under the Child and Family Services Act.

 

Bryks, principal of the Torah Academy for about a decade, defended his teaching style as warm and personal, but not inappropriate.

 

The story added that Bryks' "acknowledged" actions with several students involved tickling them at the waist, kissing them on the head, hugging and having students sit on his lap. Jim Bakken, director of Child and Family Services for the Department of Community Services, considered such actions on Bryks' part "neither appropriate nor professional behavior."

 

Joel Maslovsky, president of the board of Herzilia-Adas Yeshurun Synagogue, which runs the pre-Kindergarten to grade 8 school, has pledged that the board will implement all sex education programs recommended in the community services department's review of complaints against Bryks, carried out for the past few months.

 

Maslovsky added that his board would work with Jewish Child and family Service in putting the programs in place.

 

Among other things, the programs will include a system for dealing with "abuse" within the school, whether an alleged offender is a student, parent, relative, staff member or total stranger.

 

"...It is felt that such protocols be developed immediately, so that the painful process resulting from the board trying to do its own investigation does not occur for any student ever again," Bakker said in the community services in the community services department letter.

 

The synagogue's current 19-member board gave Bryks unanimous support as Torah Academy's principal, and as spiritual leader of Herzlia Synagogue. But an informed source told the Jewish Post & News eight or nine former board members resigned last January, most of them in dissent over the majority's refusal to dismiss Bryks.

 

The Free Press published a story at the top of page 1 March 29 about the community service department's review of Bryks' behavior after a reporter from that newspaper snuck into an information meeting the Herzalia Synagogue board held the night before to brief Torah Academy parents and synagogue members about the department's findings.

 

The Jewish Post & News has asked for permission to attend the meeting, but a member of Herzlia's board advised that this newspaper would not be welcome, as the proceedings were an internal matter.

 

Board Failed to Reach Agreement

The synagogue board called the community services department in to review complaints a parent made about Bryks' behavior with female students after the board looked into the matter last year, and failed to reach agreement on what to do.

 

In its review, community services found that students at the school were extremely naive about issues of sexual abuse. It concluded that the students, parents and staff needed training in recognizing signs of such abuse toward children.

 

In an interview on CBC's Information Radio the day the Free Press story appeared, Bryks again defended his actions.

 

"Torah Academy has always tried to encourage a warm, caring atmosphere," he told interviewer Lesley Hughes. Hughes asked him whether holding students on his lap was part of the school's educational philosophy.

 

"I realize contemporary social attitudes require a certain physical distancing between teachers and students," Bryks replied. "I may have been naive. I will keep these attitudes in mind and preserve the school's warm and caring approach.

 

An angry parent at the information meeting, however, could not excuse Bryks' behavior toward his female students.

 

"He doesn't have the right to tickle them or have them sit in his lap," the Free Press quoted her as saying. "I don't think it's appropriate for a 14-year-old girl to sit in a rabbi's lap."

 

In an interview with The Jewish Post & News this week, Bryks adamantly denied the girl the woman was referring to was as old as 14.

 

Parents the Free Press reporter interviewed at the March 28 information meeting said 20 students left the 165-student school since December, when the Herzlia Synagogue started looking into the allegations against Bryks. Herzlia President Maslovsky estimated last Sunday, however, that "probably no more than 15 or 16 students from about five or six families" left since December, as well as one student from one more family that was moving out of town.

 

Nearly Half The Board Resigned

Although Bryks received unanimous support from the current synagogue board at a March 24 meeting, an informed source who was on the board until last January told The Jewish Post & News that show of unanimity was misleading.

 

He said nearly half the 19-member board resigned at the beginning of January, most of them in protest over the refusal of a majority of board members to dismiss Bryks over his physical actions with female students.

 

Those who resigned included a past president of Herzlia Synagogue.

 

A longstanding Herzlia Synagogue member familiar with the board acknowledged last Monday that nearly half the board resigned last January, but denied it was because those resigning wanted Bryks fired.

 

The positions left vacant by the resignations were filled by people who unanimously voted at a March 24 meeting of the Herzlia Synagogue board to retain Bryks and endorse the recommendations of the community services department report, including its call for sex education programs at Torah Academy.

 

Asked what the board's reasoning was behind its unanimous support for Bryks March 24, Herzlia President Maslovsky said in an interview last Sunday that the government report didn't make any specific recommendations about Bryks' behavior, other than to call some of his actions with several female students inappropriate and unprofessional.

 

"The board endorsed the rabbi on that. We're carrying on, and using the report's recommendations as a basis for actions."

 

"Context Important" Asked by The Jewish Post & News this week how he could justify hugging, tickling or kissing female students from an Orthodox Jewish point of view, Bryks said it was important to understand the context.

 

"In general, conduct between males and females within halacha (Orthodox Jewish tradition) is prohibited when conduct is done in a suggestive manner.

 

"My contact with students was done in a classroom setting, in an open, above-board fashion, often in the presence of parents."

 

Sometimes, for example, he would kiss a child on the head and the contact usually involved children as young as five or six.

 

"This school is an elementary school...where this kind of conduct is not unusual in dealing with younger children...I've tickled little boys as well as little girls."  Bryks acknowledged rumors had surfaced during the investigation that his behavior included more than just tickling, hugging, or kissing students on the head.

 

But a synagogue member familiar with the investigation by Child & Family Services told The Jewish Post & News it included contact by phone and in person with 45 individuals, including students, parents of students, the vice-principal of the school, current board members, Rabbi Bryks and several of his rabbinical colleagues," and nothing could be substantiated beyond the fact that Bryks had hugged, kissed on the head, tickled at the waist or held on his lap some female students.

 

"My feeling was that you could sit till the cows come home listening to every rumor that comes up," Bryks said. "But the report tried to deal with the rumors and to substantiate them, and didn't come up with anything further."

 

Made Sure He Stayed Visible Asked how he coped once the Herzlia board started looking into his conduct last fall, Bryks said the atmosphere in the school"had the potential for being very tense."

 

But he made sure he stayed visible, and that he acted no differently than before.

"Unless you were privy (to the investigation), no child or parent would have sensed anything different."

 

Bryks admitted that at times he retreated to be by himself, but his "confidence in the truth" and concern for the school kept him going.

 

"I feel what we have here is special and must be preserved," he concluded.

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Open letter to parents of Torah Academy By Cheryl Greenberg

From the Heart

An open letter to parents of Torah Academy

By Cheryl Greenberg

 

Most of you know that this has been a very difficult year at Torah Academy. But to me the staff of Torah Academy has made such a positive impression on me that I want to share my feelings with you. This year the staff at Torah Academy has provided our children with the greatest lesson in life. They have fostered within the attitudes of perseverance, determination and belief in oneself.

 

There is so much we have taken for granted at Torah Academy but who can adequately measure the dedication and determination of Rabbi Bryks, Mrs. Louise Kennedy and the entire staff? Who can measure their incredible courage that has been quietly shown day in day out to our children, the ability to rebound from adversity, to bend, to adapt, to strive to meet the needs of our children. My respect for this remarkable group of individuals who under most difficult circumstances has never neglected their responsibilities is enormous.

 

But they cannot do it alone. I know Torah Academy has the strength to do whatever is necessary to continue to give our children the excellent education they always have. But, it needs the support of each and every one of us. Now more so than ever is the time for us to stay and work together and show our commitment to the goals and ideals of Torah Academy. I want my children to continue their early years of education at Torah Academy. I sincerely hope that you do too.

___________________________________________________________________________________

     

Torah Academy Tours Israel

The Jewish Post & News - Wednesday, December ?, 1988

 

On December 14th, students from Grade 7 and 8 at Torah Academy left for a two-week tour of Israel with their teacher and principal, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. Based in Jerusalem the group will tour the major cities, taking in the most recently excavated archaeological sites as well as visiting with the I.D.F., the Chief Rabbinate and the Torah Academy grove in the J.N.F. forest in Galil Canada.

On the return trip they will spend Shabbat in New York attending a Melave Malka hosted by Rabbi Yaakov Lomner and Chaim Richmond, former teachers at Torah Academy. Rabbi Bryks and the students will arrive back in Winnipeg on January 1, 1989.

 

At this crucial point in the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, the students will show they affirmation of their heritage and their commitment to their Jewish future by "going up" to the Land. The students, parents and staff of Torah Academy wish the students and Rabbi Bryks a "N'seeah Tovah".

 

Photo with story - caption: Israel-bound Torah Academy students: seated (left to right): Gideon Garland, Sharon Cohen; standing (left to right): Yizi Stern, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, Sarah Federsel.

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Ephraim Bryks Letter

 January 16, 1990

 

Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun Congregation

620 Brock Street

Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3N 0Z4

Telephone (204) 489-6262 - 489-6668

 

January 16, 1990

 

To all members and friends of the Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun and the parents and students of the Torah Academy and the Herzlia Academy Night School;

 

For the past twelve years I have had the pleasure of serving as your Spiritual leader, Principal, teacher and friend. Together we have grown and blossomed succeeding in creating community institutions of importance and value. We, as a Synagogue and a school, have protected the Jewish "Mesorah" (Traditions) with pride and dignity standing as role models for all to learn from and follow. We have also transmitted those high ideals to our children to insure ours and their future.

 

Now, together with my wife and family, we feel the time has come to move on at the end of the school term. Our years in Winnipeg have brought us great joy and satisfaction. We will always cherish our memories and maintain our close friendships. We pray that all our achievements will continue to grow and prosper, reaching new levels and heights. We are confident in the committment each and every one of you have displayed over the years towards these high ideals and look with anticipation to hearing about their continued growth and success.

 

May Almighty G-d bestow on each and every one of you His Divine blessings of peace, health and prosperity. We look forward over the next six months to continue to serve you and all your needs and help guide you in preparing for the future.

 

With best wishes,

 

Ephraim and Yocheved Bryks

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Mark Schulman letter

January 16, 1990

 

Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun Congregation

620 Brock Street

Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3N 0Z4

Telephone (204) 489-6262 - 489-6668

January 16, 1990

 

To the Members of Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun and the school parents of Torah Academy;

It is with great regret that I must inform you of the decision of Rabbi and Mrs. Bryks to leave our community at the end of this years school term. We have been fortunate to have Rabbi Bryks with us for so many years and the successes and growth to our shul and school that he has brought. We will miss his warmth, friendship and guidance and we wish him and his family every success in the future.

 

In the interim, the Board has begun to form a search committee to be chaired by Joel Maslovsky to begin the search for a suitable replacement. Already appropriate contacts have been made and the process begun. We are committed to maintaining the Synagogue and school and all its varied programs. It is our hope that the hard work and tireless devotion of Rabbi Bryks will bring further growth and prosperity in the years ahead. With your confidence and support this will be a reality.

 

If anyone wishes to play a role in the search process please contact Joel Maslovsky at 489- 5228. It is our desire to form a search committee that reflects all the needs and attitudes of the organization.

 

Thank you for your confidence and support.

 

Sincerely,

 

Mark M. Schulman - President

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Investigative documentary: "Unorthodox Conduct"

Documentary Transcript - CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) documentary

Program Prime Time News, Network CBC

Date February 28 1994 - Time 21:00:00 ET - End 22:00:00 ET

Unorthodox Conduct - Case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

Guest Sara and Mortin Leven, parents; Kristen Balmer, Pychotherapist; Dr.Adrian Fein, friend of Bryks; Judy Silver, fmr. synagogue board member; Ephraim Bryks, rabbi; Kovi Smolak, fmr.student; Patti Cohen, teacher; Nathan Kabrinski, synagogue board member; Keith Cooper, director, Child and Family Services; 5 unidentified persons.

 

Host Peter Mansbridge and Pamela Wallin

 

Mansbridge: This is the story of a powerful man, and the shocking accusations that he abused that power with children he was supposed to protect. For more than 10 years, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks was the spiritual leader of a small synagogue in Winnipeg and principal of its school.

 

But now, in a joint investigation, Prime Time News and CBC Winnipeg have uncovered some disturbing stories.

 

Four former students who accuse Rabbi Bryks of sexual abuse. A warning now, this documentary contains graphic language and its content may offend some viewers. You will also see some home video of school concerts, we want to stress that none of the children in those videos is the subject of our documentary.

 

Here's Danielle Keefler.

 

Judy Silver:  We could not believe, it was hard to believe that this man would do anything wrong.

 

Mortin Leven: I think he's not just a fraud and -- not a charlatan, but really wicked. And I know how many people he's hurt.

 

Sara Leven: I was tremendously angry and so deeply hurt that someone should do that to a small child.

 

Danielle Keefler:  The sounds of innocence that once filled the Torah Academy in Winnipeg are no more. The Orthodox Jewish day school closed its doors in 1991, more than 10 years after it was built from scratch by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. But some former students say what happened to them at his hands has left haunting memories, and scarred lives.

 

Sara: He was a kid who always had a smile on his face.

 

Mortin: He was also very vivid and fun-loving.

 

Keefler: Innocent and trusting. Daniel Leven grew up in a close-kit Jewish Orthodox family; two brothers, two sister, parents Sara and Mortin, who wanted tradition, values instilled in their children.They enroled five-year-old Daniel in the Torah Academy.

 

Sara:  Education is almost everything. It -- Jewish education teaches a person how to live for the rest of their life.

 

Keefler: Daniel went to the school from kindergarten to Grade 2. Then the Levens 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:  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 --

 

Mortin: 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.

 

Mortin:  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.

 

Mortin:  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."

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged sexual predator

Keefler:  After 10 years, Daniel's silence was broken. His childhood torment revealed. Last June, he went to the Toronto Police. He gave a statement on tape. His psychotherapist, Kristen Balmer was there.

 

Kristen Balmer: He said, "I don't want this to continue any more." He said, "I don't want any other person to have to go through what I went through," and I watched him cry, and there's no question he was telling the truth.

 

Keefler: Daniel tucked away his trauma, spoke of it rarely. But with paint, he let memories, images flow on to paper. In mid-September, Daniel's mother got an unexpected phone call, it was the Toronto Police, their tape machine was faulty, it hadn't recorded Daniel's statement.They wanted him to do it all over again.

 

Sara:  The interview was supposed to take place, I guess, about a week later.  A week -- I'm sorry, I can't say it. He never lived to make another interview.

 

Mortin: He took his own life on Yom Kippur in the afternoon.

 

Keefler:  On the day of atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Daniel hanged himself. Toronto Police had to drop the case, the complainant was dead. A month after Daniel's suicide, a memorial service in Winnipeg. A family friend delivered a message from Daniel's father, a message that hinted at what may have caused Daniel to take his own life.

Rabbi: Most of you here today didn't really know our son and brother Daniel, or at least not since he was very young. You're here to show concern for his family. Some of you may even be here because his death is a grim reminder of a bleakly sinister stain on the Jewish community.

 

Keefler: Ephraim Bryks grew up in Denver, Colorado. His father, Lejzor, was a respected Orthodox rabbi, a renowned scholar. In 1971, Lejzor Bryks hanged himself amid rumours of financial scandal. That same year, Ephraim began rabbinical studies. In 1978, he looked for work. The Herzalia Adas Yeshurun Synagogue in Winnipeg needed a rabbi --24-year-old Bryks got the job.

 

Dr. Adrian Fein:  He's one of the most exceptional human beings I known.

 

Keefler:  Dr. Adrian Fein became a close friend of the rabbi in Winnipeg.

 

Fein:  An unbelievably hard worker, a person with tremendous interpersonal skills, and an ability to be quite exceptional with either young children or 90-year-old congregants.

 

Keefler:  Bryks injected new life to the small orthodox congregation, new members flocked to synagogue, drawn in by his aura. Judy Silver was a synagogue board member.

 

Silver:  I'd almost call it a cult, a cultish personality, where he was very charismatic.

 

Home videotape of Ephraim Bryks:  and now for the final moment to see who graduates and goes on to Grade 1.

 

Keefler:  Within two years, Bryks started a Jewish say school. To many, he became a hero.

 

Home videotape of child:  Without further delay, our very own Rabbi Bryks.

 

Home videotape of Bryks: I would like to express my thanks.

 

Keefler:  Bryks had more than charisma. He had his own rules. Local orthodox practice wasn't good enough. He alone set the standard for his own followers -- what was kosher, what wasn't. He even set up his own religious court.

 

Fein:  He made a stance on issues that he felt there was no compromise that could be allowed. So his critics, of course, could say he was a megalomania, or this is him wanting to set himself up. I don't think that was his agenda.

 

Keefler:  To some, a visionary, to others, a man obsessed with power. The clash polarized the community. Bryks questioned other rabbi's Jewishness.  The questioned his credibility.

 

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. In "The Jewish Post and News," Bryks plagiarized newspaper columns copied word for word from another rabbi's book. No permission, no credit. In November 1987, Winnipeg's council of Rabbis wrote a scathing letter to the editor. They accused Bryks of simple "plagiarism," "theft." Bryks' lawyer threatened the newspaper with a lawsuit if the letter were published. It was never printed.

 

videotape of Bryks:  You should all have a program in front of you.

 

Kovi Smolak:  He would be sitting on the bench, and he'd be saying hello to kids, saying good morning, and he'd pick one kid out of the group coming in, and he would say hello and put them on his lap, and tickle them, and you know -- and he's laugh, and be very extra friendly towards them, including me sometimes. And he would tickle them along the whole-- along their bodies.

 

Keefler:  Former student Kovi Smolak says Bryks also played games with boys in their bathing suits at the swimming pool.

 

Smolak: He would kind of like make a cracking noise, and then he would run his fingers like that, like along here, or shoulders or here, down -- sometimes he would stop here, or sometimes he would just continue going on just down the legs, like that. Like moving his fingers around.

 

Keefler:  For the eight years Smolak was a Torah Academy student. He saw nothing wrong with Bryks' incessant touching. And many teachers and parents welcomed his warm, demonstrative style. When teacher Patti Cohen saw Bryks with a girl on his lap in the school hallway, she didn't like it.

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged Sex Offender

Patti Cohen: I felt uncomfortable with it. I mentioned it to one or two people at the time. And they thought I was being too uptight about it.

 

Keefler:  What people didn't see, many didn't believe. Bryks counselled 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, touch her, tickled her, and talked about sex. Once, she says, he even licked her face. Synagogue board member Nathan Kabrinski heard the girl's story.

 

Nathan Kabrinski: This struck me as very inappropriate, and I felt that it should be dealt with.

 

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.  

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.

 

Kabrinski:  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.

 

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

 

Kabrinski:  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.

 

Kabrinski: The whole auditorium of the synagogue was filled with people shouting and screaming.

 

Keefler: Board members cast their ballots. The rabbi wasn't fired. Judy Silver and eight other members quit in protest. They paid a price.

 

Silver: The community at large was incensed. His supporters were even more incensed, and I and my children were shunned. My child was spat on in the synagogue.

 

Keefler: Dr. Adrian Fein says Bryks' opponents were on a witch hunt.

 

Fein:  Rational, sane, friendly, good people, "God-fearing people" became rabid seekers of the destruction of the rabbi, thinking that he had done these terrible things.

 

Keefler: The board backed Bryks, but finally asked Winnipeg child and family services to investigate. For two months, social workers talked to 45 people, students, teachers and parents. When the agency issued its report in March 1988, the rabbi supporters called it an exoneration. The board considered the case closed. Bryks kept his job.

 

Kabrinski:  He created the community and he could do no wrong. And so calling him  into question was really calling the community into question. It was just not acceptable to do that.

 

Keefler: The report found Bryks hadn't broken any criminal law. But it did find his tickling and touching "neither appropriate nor professional." And it 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's 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 laid completely on top of her, touched her, tickled her all the time. When a social worker asked questions, the girl kept quiet. 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 1. The couple is disguised to protect their son's identity.

 

Unidentified Parent 1: He showed on the dolls that he had been basically -- I guess, fondled, masturbated --

 

Unidentified Parent 2: Rubbed.

 

Unidentified Parent 1: Rubbed, rubbed would be the word. He used the word "tickled."

 

Unidentified Parent 2: The rabbi would comment -- get him out of the classroom during a session of class, take him up to the office.

 

Unidentified Parent 1: And he threatened him.

 

Unidentified Parent 2: He threatened him that if he were to say this to anyone, the big boys would come and beat him up.

 

Keefler:  Bryks was brought in for questioning by the police. Then let go. Police asked Manitoba's senior crown attorney for an opinion. The word came back, no charges.

 

Unidentified Parent 1:  We were called one day and told that the crown wasn't going to

prosecute.

 

Father:  Because they felt that it would be a child's word against the rabbi's word.

 

Keefler: We asked Child and Family Services why it didn't reopen its investigation into the Torah Academy after the boy went to the police.

 

CFS director Keith Cooper.

Keith Cooper: It was decided that it would not be productive to try and go in and talk to all the children in the school because of the highly charged atmosphere. That just sort of blocked off children's ability to respond and so on.

 

Keefler: That atmosphere took its toll on the school, children were pulled out.  Bryks stayed on until 1990. Then left Winnipeg. The Torah Academy closed. But we found another child who can't close that chapter of her life. A fourth student, this couple's daughter claims she was molested.

 

Unidentified Parent 3: It's horrifying, and it's unbelievable.

 

Keefler: When we come back, we'll have that girl's story, and where Rabbi Bryksis today.

 

(Commercial Break)

 

Keefler: The name of the school has been wiped from the building, but memories are etched in the mind of a 14-year-old girl.

 

Unidentified Parent 3: I felt unbelievably numb.

 

Keefler: Last November, this couple's daughter told them she was molested by

Rabbi Bryks in Grade 2. They're disguised to protect the girl's identity.

 

Unidentified Parent 3: 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 -- her stockings, and then he would fondle, 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.

 

Unidentified Parent 4: The most painful recent event since her disclosure for me was going up to see how she was in her bedroom. It was 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 14-year-old is in counselling. Her parents say she isn't ready to go to the police.

 

Unidentified Parent 3: I mean, she's so fragile that this has to be on her own time.

 

Unidentified Parent 4: She also knows about another boy who did go to the police and nothing happened. Rabbi Bryks is still out there, still teaching school.

 

Keefler: After Bryks left Winnipeg, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Montreal planned to hire him as principal. A group of parents protested. They'd learned of the investigations by police and Child and Family Services in Winnipeg. The Rabbi wasn't hired. Rabbi Bryks' job search took him across the border to New York City. In 1990, a new Jewish high school also called the Torah Academy opened in Queens. It offers Grade 7 to 12 for both young men and women, most of whom are recent immigrants. In spite of the controversy that followed Bryks from Winnipeg to Montreal, he was hired as the high school's principal. Today, Rabbi Bryks is a success story in Queens' Orthodox community. The school was desperate for a principal, desperate to give young Russian Jews a place to study. Bryks started with an empty building. He now has 400 students, a familiar story, a story we wanted to talk to him about. Over the phone, he said that "Winnipeg is a part of my life that's behind me" and refused to be interviewed. We went to see him in person. Rabbi Bryks, I'm Danielle Keefler with CBC Television. I just wanted to have a moment of your time, Sir, to give you some information on some very serious allegations that have come to our attention.

 

Bryks: Thank you, but as I mentioned to you yesterday, I really prefer not to discuss this.

 

Keefler: Daniel Levin, a boy who was at your school, Torah Academy --

 

Bryks: Thank you very much. I wish you a lot of success.

 

Keefler: He alleges that you sexually abused him, sir. Did you sexually abuse Daniel Levin?

 

Bryks: I do not wish to discuss this. Thank you.

 

Keefler: Did you sexually abuse any children at the Torah Academy?

 

Bryks: I really have no comment, thank you.

 

Keefler: Sir, we've spoken to a number of families. A number of their children have come forward and, in great detail, have alleged that you sexually abused them. How do you explain that?

 

Bryks: I really have no comment.

 

Keefler: These are very serious allegations, and they're coming forward in great detail. Are you saying these children are lying?

 

Bryks: I have no comment.

 

Keefler: Is there anything you'd like to say also?

 

Bryks: No. Thank you.

 

Keefler: Bryks' employers in New York say they checked out his past, and all they dug up was unsubstantiated rumour, but they knew Child and Family Services investigated the man in Winnipeg, knew he wasn't hired in Montreal. The national body that services all Jewish day schools in North America has no authority over who is hired. The schools are on their own. In Winnipeg, the school's ward, the community, stood by Rabbi Bryks. Many people still do. Joel Mislovski, the board's president at the time, and other board members refused to be interviewed. In a letter, the board defended its decision to keep Bryks on, saying "There were no further occurrences." Many in the Jewish community want the door on the Bryks' affair kept shut, but not the victims' parents.

 

Unidentified Parent 1:  It's time for the community to stop covering it up. I think there's a -- great fear in the Jewish community because of anti-Semitism that we can't air our dirty laundry, and it's time --and the Jewish community really has a lot to answer for here.

 

Keefler: Former board member Judy Silver has many regrets.

 

Silver: We thought we could keep it among ourselves, keep it a secret, that no one ever has to know that this happened in our synagogue. Yes, we were ashamed. We were ashamed that we hired this man and let this happen.

 

Mortin: The irony is you send your child to a school where you think, this of all places, he will be safe.

 

Sara: We have lost a child through this and nothing, nothing that is ever done to Rabbi Bryks could ever bring him back. Daniel can never come back. His life was destroyed by this.

 

Keefler: Mortin Levin reaches out to his son every day, a prayer to help guide Daniel's departed soul. Sara Levin mourns through paint therapy.

 

After a year of mourning, a headstone will replace a simple marker in a Toronto cemetery, Daniel Levin's final resting place. For Prime Time News, I'm Danielle Keefler.

 

Copyright Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1994. All rights reserved. For duplication, distribution or exhibition rights to any material contained herein, copyright release must be received from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

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CBC report re-opens Bryks controversy

Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks principal Yeshiva Berachel David Torah High School Queens

By Myron Love

The Jewish Post & News (Front Page) - Wednesday, March 9, 1994

Photo caption:  Rabbi Ephraim Bryks as he appeared on "24 Hours" and "Prime Time News", when reporter Danielle Keefler approached him outside Torah Academy in Queen's, New York.

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged Sexual Predator

When Rabbi Ephraim Bryks moved away from Winnipeg in 1990, he left behind unanswered questions, according to a CBC report aired February 28.

The report, titled "Unorthodox Conduct", aired on local CBC TV's "24 Hours" and the national "Prime Time News", and dealt with allegations of sexual abuse against Bryks by children who attended the school he built up. The report also dealt with now the Herzlia Synagogue board and other parties handled investigations in 1987 and 1988 about Bryks' alleged misconduct with students at the school.

 

"Unorthodox Conduct" has met with a mixed response in the Jewish community. While some believe further investigation is warranted, others, particularly at the Herzlia Synagogue where he was rabbi, want to put this matter behind them and get on with healing the divisions in the synagogue.

 

Rabbi Bryks was hired by the Herzlia in 1978. A charismatic man, he built up the congregation and the school he started - the Torah Academy - but left under a cloud of accusations in 1990. The allegations followed him to Montreal where he was unsuccessful in applying for a teaching position in another Jewish school. He is currently principal of another Torah Academy he helped start in Queen's, New York - a Grade 7 to 12 school for Russian Jewish immigrant teenagers.

 

The allegations against the rabbi were brought to the fore again last September, highlighted by the suicide of 17-year-old Daniel Levin, it was reported in "Unorthodox Conduct". A former Torah Academy student and son of Martin Levin, a past editor of The Jewish Post, Daniel had gone to the Toronto police with charges of sexual abuse against Bryks which had been tormenting him.

 

Noah Erenberg, who produced the CBC investigative piece, would not say whether that incident sparked the report, although the 20-minute episode began with coverage of the memorial service for Levin that was held in Winnipeg in October. "I hope the story speaks for itself," he said. "We consider all sorts of story ideas." (See related story on page 3 headlined "Lawsuit threat nothing unusual".).

 

Herzlia Synagogue last week issued a statement in response to the CBC story signed by Jack Craven, the synagogue's current president. He said, in part:

 

"We are deeply troubled about the new allegations against the former rabbi of our institution. We are extremely sorry at the pain and suffering people are feeling at this time. The Herzlia Synagogue can make no further public statements about the allegations until a complete investigation is conducted by the proper authorities."

 

On February 16, the synagogue's board of directors sent a letter to the CBC protesting the station's filming the synagogue's premises without explanation or permission. The letter, signed by Joel Maslovsky, a past president of the shul, also outlined Rabbi Bryks' association with the synagogue. It referred to the investigation of allegations of improper conduct against him by Winnipeg South Child and Family Services, than a branch of then government-funded Winnipeg Child and Family Services agency, and the branch's subsequent March, 1988 report which concluded his behavior was unprofessional, but not illegal.

 

"All known complaints and complainants were given the opportunity at that time to voice their concerns and influence the result through an objective and competent agency," Craven's letter added. The report made recommendations "for improvements to the school program and for more accountability. All the recommendations were promptly implemented. There were no further occurrences within our school to suggest that the then board made the wrong decision" (in continuing to employ Rabbi Bryks).

 

But Inspector Lou Spado of the police department's Youth Division reported last week that an allegation was brought against Rabbi Bryks after Winnipeg South Child and Family Services filed its report. The allegation came from the parents of an 8-year-old boy who claimed the rabbi had molested him, and from the boy.

 

"The case was sent to the Crown," Spado 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."

 

The case is still open, Spado reported. If more people come forward with similar disclosures, the police are prepared to investigate and, if there is a case, refer it back to the Crown. "We realize this can be very traumatic for young children," Spado said. "They can be made to feel guilty. We are prepared to sit and listen to their stories."

 

Asked why Winnipeg Child and Family Services didn't investigate that boy's allegations in 1989 when his parents approached that agency after going to police, Ken Cooper, the agency's chief executive officer, last week claimed the atmosphere in the school and shul at the time was so "emotionally charged" that any investigation would necessarily be "contaminated".

 

Rabbi Henry Balser of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue said he counselled a family that alleged Bryks had molested their son.

 

"I passed my information on to Montreal. I and the Shaarey Zedek were both threatened with law suits."

 

Balser feels it is important to investigate this matter. "A TV show, however, is not a court of law."

 

Sherman Greenberg agreed that it is time "now that the allegations are out, that things come to a head."

 

A past president of the Herzlia, Greenberg was one of those who left the shul to form the short- lived Haminyan as a result of the bitter feelings engendered during the controversy over Rabbi Bryks. "If the allegations are true, then he shouldn't be in a classroom," he added.

 

In its letter to the CBC, the synagogue board concludes that since Rabbi Bryks left, it has worked to reintegrate members who left because of their opposition to the rabbi. To some degree, they have succeeded. Greenberg and some other former Haminyan members have rejoined the Herzlia and seem to be reasonably comfortable. The board wants to distance itself "from the old confrontations".

 

That seems to be the feeling of families who have joined the synagogue since Rabbi Bryks left as well. "It was certainly an unfortunate set of circumstances," said Marshall Braunstein. "I don't know much about it other than what I have seen in the media. My impression is that the congregation is undergoing a healing process. We want to put this behind us and give our new rabbi the greatest possible chance to succeed."

 

The Small family's involvement with the Herzlia began near the end of Rabbi Bryks' tenure. "The people we have met seem to be nice," says Lily Small. "We haven't noticed any negative effects. We like the new rabbi. He is honest and straightforward."

 

Meanwhile, the man at the centre of the allegations has built another Torah Academy from scratch in New York and seems to be making a strong, positive impression on the people around him, as he did on many of those around him in Winnipeg. Irving Laub, a board member of the New York Torah Academy, said last week he would highly recommend Rabbi Bryks to anybody.

 

"He has singlehandedly built our school and held it together," Laub said. "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."

 

Laub and his fellow board members had not seen the CBC report nor were they aware of it beforehand. They were trying to get a copy of the tape to see it for themselves and evaluate the information in it.

 

While Rabbi Bryks refused comment when the I-Team approached him with its allegations, he may bring a lawsuit against the corporation, according to Harvey Pollock Q.C. Pollock has represented Bryks in the past, although he says he is not currently the rabbi's lawyer.

 

"There are no legal proceedings as yet," Pollock said, "but he (Bryks) thinks the broadcast was defamatory. His position remains that the allegations are false."

 

Erenberg: Lawsuit Threat Nothing Unusual

 

A spokesperson for CBC's "24 Hours I-Team" says it filled a gap with "Unorthodox Conduct", the documentary about Rabbi Ephraim Bryks broadcast on 24 Hours and CBC "Prime Time News" February 28.

 

"What we did was what the police, Child and Family Services and the board at Herzlia Synagogue didn't do," I-Team Producer Noah Erenberg said last week: "We investigated it more thoroughly, and we said what we found."

 

Although, Erenberg, researcher Heidi Graham and reporter Danielle Keefler worked on the piece for about three months; no one working on the documentary knew Martin Levin, whose son, Daniel's suicide last September prompted the I-Team to do the story.

 

Erenberg said Winnipeg lawyer Harvey Pollock's threat, aired on the documentary, that Bryks might sue CBC for defamation was nothing unusual for I-Team staff.

 

"Keep in mind that before any of our stories goes to air, we're often threatened with a lawsuit. It happens frequently. In this case, anything we put into the story is something you have to be able to prove is true."

 

Marvin Terhoch, Manitoba CBC director, said the network hasn't had any further word from Pollock or Bryks since the show aired.

 

In researching the story, the I-Team's crew and CBC lawyers looked at a number of things to ensure what children and parents testifying against Bryks were saying was true.

 

Among other things, the team gathered a series of testimonies from individual children. "You accumulate a number of expressions on the subject..."

 

"You're also looking at different kinds of consistencies," Terhoch said. These include checking consistency of time and place, in the children's reporting about what happened.

Terhoch sharply refuted any suggestion that the I-Team chose to investigate Bryks because Terhoch, Erenberg, and 24 Producer Carl Karp are Jewish.

 

He also admitted the CBC fielded several complaints last week from Winnipeg Jews, suggesting that as a motive for the show.

 

"I don't think it was a factor at all ... I was familiar with the story when the issue first came up in the community," he said. The "ultimate test" for any journalist is his ability to compare the story to his own experience, but not to be "driven" by that experience.

 

"I wish that people in this community who have an interest in this story would stop circling around the issues and diverting from them by suggesting a Jewish conspiracy at the CBC."

Asked whether the New York media have picked up the CBC story about Bryks, Terhoch said two television stations there are "very interested". ""One, for sure, has requested a tape of the story, and a tape has been forwarded to them. I'm really surprised, though, that one of the dailies in Winnipeg hasn't picked up the story, and the other daily has done everything to diminish the story."

-----------------------------------------------------

 

Editorial

Disturbing questions

 

Last week, Winnipeg Jews joined other Canadians to watch "Unorthodox Conduct", a rivetting CBC documentary about Rabbi Ephraim Bryks.

 

Among other things, the documentary included detailed testimony from parents of several children who claimed Bryks seriously sexually molested them as students at Torah Academy, the South End Winnipeg elementary school he built up and served as principal for more than a decade, until June, 1990.

 

Despite what was assumed to be an in-depth investigation of Bryks' conduct by Winnipeg South Child and Family Services in 1988, these allegations came after the investigation closed.

 

In its report at that time, that agency noted that Bryks had tickled and kissed some students, and that such conduct was neither "appropriate" nor "professional".

 

Parents and one teenager a reporter quoted in the CBC documentary, however, made far more serious allegations.

 

Among other things, "Unorthodox Conduct" raises disturbing questions about how Winnipeg South Child and Family Services and a provincial government employee responded to complaints made by some parents against the rabbi in the late 1980s.

 

A Crown attorney with the Justice Department decided charges shouldn't be laid against Bryks when a "seven-year-old boy" and his parents went to police in 1989 with an extremely serious allegation against Bryks, the CBC report says. The stated reason: It would be a child's word against a rabbi's.

 

When the same parents approached Winnipeg South Child and Family Services a short time later to report the alleged incident, workers at that government-funded agency also decided against investigating the case, on the grounds that the atmosphere at Torah Academy was "too highly charged".

 

What curious unconvincing excuses those are for agencies entrusted at least partly with the welfare of children.

 

In the face of numerous obstacles, the CBC courageously and carefully researched and telecast an important piece of investigative journalism. But in the Canadian legal tradition people are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a courtroom. So far, that hasn't happened to Rabbi Bryks.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Shame!

CBC Alleges Rabbi is Child Molester 

By Gil Kezwer

Jewish Life (March 1994), Cover page (continued page 14)

 

A shame and a disgrace. An embarrassment for the Jewish people. A desecration of God's holy name. Those were among the reactions in the Toronto Jewish community to the broadcast February 28 and March 1 on CBC Prime Time News of shocking allegations that Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, 39, formerly the principal of Winnipeg's Torah Academy, molested students in his charge.

 

Equally appalling was the report that Daniel Levin of Glengrove Avenue, one of the four children who have accused Rabbi Bryks of sexual abuse, committed suicide this past Yom Kippur after Metro Police asked the Oakwood Collegiete 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.

 

Levin, 17 at the time of his tragic death, studied at the Orthodox Jewish school in the Manitoba capital from kindergarten through Grade Two, when his family moved to Montreal and later Toronto. For seven years the boy was in denial about the traumatic abuse he had suffered , CBC alleges, but then his life began to unravel. After his parents, Sara and Mortin Levin, separated, the tormented youth, then 14, became unable to concentrate at school. Prone to explosive fits of rage, he started treatment with psychotherapist Kristen Balmer.

 

In May 1993, after three years of counseling, Levin was able to recall long-suppressed memories. His mother told CBC: "He [Rabbi Bryks] was fondling his [Levin's] genitals first over his clothes, and then he opened his pants." The boy told his mother that afterwards the rabbi gave him an Elite peppermint and warned him God would punish hi

 

His mother added: "And then he [her son] had a memory and started coughing and spitting out mucous...and crying.

 

And he said that he was in the office, and Rabbi Bryks put his penis in Daniel's mouth.

 

Psychotherapist Balmer said "I watched him cry, and there's no question he was telling the truth." Levin had told her, "I don't want this to continue any more. I don't want any other person to have to go through what I went through."

 

One former student, who did not wish to be interviewed on camera told CBC that Rabbi Bryks fondled her breasts. Another girl, today 14 told her parents that when she was in Grade Two the rabbi would frequently remove her from her classroom and take her to his office where he would take off her underwear and fondle her genitalia. She also said that he cautioned her God would punish her if she told anyone.

 

The unidentified parent said: "The most painful recent event since her disclosure for me was going up to see how she was in her bedroom. It was 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."

 

The girl is now in counselling, and her parents say she isn't ready to go to the police.

 

Rabbi Bryks is a native of Denver, Colorado. His father, Lejzor, also an Orthodox rabbi, hanged himself in 1971 amid rumours of financial scandal. That same year Ephraim began yeshiva studies leading to rabbinic smicha. Graduating in 1978, he came to Winnipeg where he transformed the small Herzlia Adas Yeshurun Synagogue into a major congregation.

 

A highly ambitious and charismatic personality, within two years he had set up a day school as well as his own kosher hasgacha (supervision) and beit din (rabbinical court). His critics accused him of megalomania and said he was obsessed with power. But his supporters said he was an idealist and a visionary unwilling to compromise on issues of halacha (Jewish law).

 

Questions about Rabbi Bryks began surfacing. CBC's Danielle Keefler stated that he boasted in a Winnipeg journal of a law degree from the State of Israel, and that he was a dayan (religious judge). In fact he was a mere Yeshiva student, and Israel doesn't give out law degrees.

 

CBC alleged Rabbi Bryks plagiarized his column in The Jewish Post and News from another rabbi's book. In November 1987, Winnipeg's Va'ad Rabbanim (Rabbinic Council wrote a scathing letter to the editor accusing Rabbi Bryks of "plagiarism" and "theft". But libel chill set in after Bryks' lawyer threatened a lawsuit. The letter was never published.

 

In December 1987 the synagogue board heard allegations of sexual improprieties from a 14-year- old student. Her story, as well as accounts of unwanted sexual advances by two women congregants, simply were not believed. Nine members of the congregation quit in protest. They were ridiculed and humiliated by Rabbi Bryks' supporters.

 

Though the synagogue board backed the rabbi, they asked Winnipeg Child and Family Services to investigate. For two months, social workers interviewed 45 students, teachers and parents. The CFS issued a report in March 1988 noting that while Rabbi Bryks hadn't broken any criminal law, his incessant tickling and touching of students was "neither appropriate nor professional".

 

The Jewish community tried to hush up the controversy, fearing it would either lead to anti- semitism or personal repercussions within the community. Specifically Rabbi Bryks.

 

The troubling questions of whether Rabbi Bryks was a child molester wouldn't go away. He finally left Winnipeg in 1990, and the Torah Academy closed down. The rabbi was offered a position as principal of an Orthodox Jewish day school in Montreal. But a group of irate parents informed the academy of the investigations of Bryks by Winnipeg Police and Family and Child Services. The job was withdrawn. He then was hired as principal of the Torah Academy in Queens, N.Y., a new school for immigrant youth from the former Soviet Union that was desperate to attract a qualified administrator.

 

CBC's Danielle Keefler went to New York to interview the rabbi there. Stopped on the street, he would only say "no comment" and that "Winnipeg is a part of my life that is behind me" when asked about the allegations against him.

 

"People that are ill should not be put into positions where they can hurt others with illness," observed a psychologist and prominent member of the Lubavitch community here, his voice tinged with sorrow.

 

"There is sexual abuse within the community," said Gordon Wolfe, executive director of Toronto's Jewish Family and Child Service. In 1993, the JF&CS investigated 70 cases of alleged sexual abuse involving minors, of which 34 were intra-familial. Ten of the cases led to criminal charges. Wolfe was unaware of the number of convictions.

 

As well, Wolfe reported 120 incidents of physical abuse involving children, of which eight led to charges. "What you saw there [in the allegations against Bryks] is part of the pattern that often exists in this kind of behaviour. It doesn't surprise me that the children didn't say anything for a long time before coming forth. It doesn't surprise me that many people did not believe them. And it doesn't surprise me that enormous pressure was brought on the Winnipeg Child and Family Service to not pursue their investigation, particularly because he was a rabbi."

 

In an interview with Jewish Life after the broadcast, Sara Levin said that she remains optimistic that at least one of the students Rabbi Bryks is alleged to have abused — some of whom are in counselling and drug treatment today -- will one day be able to be strong enough to come forward and testify.

 

"I would like to see him brought to justice, to stand trial for the things he's done."

 

And with terrible sadness in her eyes, she added, "So many people knew little things but we never put them together. We never suspected."

 __________________________________________________________________________________

CBC threatened with lawsuit for report on Winnipeg rabbi

CJN Staff

The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, May 5, 1994

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged Sex Offender

Toronto - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has been threatened with a lawsuit for defamation as a result of a report it aired which made a number of allegations against a former Winnipeg rabbi and educator.

 

A "Notice of Action" delivered to the CBC claims that the broadcast contained false and defamatory statements about Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, said Daniel Henry, senior legal counsel for the CBC.

 

The CBC has not made any formal response to the notice, he said. Instead, it has written to Rabbi Bryks' lawyer, Harvey Pollack, requesting further information. "I've asked for more precision in the notice as to which assertions in the program they are claiming as false and defamatory," Henry said. "It was a long broadcast and a lot of information was contained in it."

 

The notice stems from a CBC report titled "Unorthodox Conduct" broadcast in Winnipeg and later nationally three times in late February and early March.

 

The CBC report interviewed parents of three children who had been students of Rabbi Bryks during his tenure as head of the Torah Academy, which ended in 1990. Among those were Martin Levin and Kaye (Sara) Levin, the parents of Daniel Levin, who committed suicide on Yom Kippur last year, when he was 17. The other parents in the documentary were unidentified.

 

Both Levins were named in the legal notice. Henry said.

 

Under Manitoba's Defamation Act, the notice is intended to give an opportunity for a r

 __________________________________________________________________________________

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

Jewish Tribune – B'nai Brith Canada, Page 16

August 4, 1994

Toronto – Four years after leaving Winnipeg, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks remains haunted by students' child abuse allegations while he was principal of the Torah Academy, a school operated by Herzlia-Adas Yeshrun, an Orthodox congregation lead by Rabbi Bryks.

 

On a February 28, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) documentary Toronto's Martin and Sara Levin said their 17-year-old son Daniel, committed suicide last Yom Kippur after police asked their son to re-record a June, 1993, statement alleging sexual abuse in 1993 Rabbi Bryks.

 

Another girl's parents alleged on the documentary that their daughter, who is now in therapy and isn't ready to contact police, was also molested by Rabbi Bryks, currently principal of the Torah Academy, a 400-student Orthodox school in Queens (The Tribune has learned that Rabbi Bryks' contract for the coming school year has not been renewed. No reason for the decision was given by a spokesman at Torah Academy).

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged Sex Offender

 

No charges have ever been laid against Rabbi Bryks but Sgt. Robin Parker of the Child Abuse Unit of the Winnipeg Police Service, Youth Division told The Tribune last week that "The case was never closed. The CBC documentary brought other people to come forward to members of the community and to us. Due to the new complainants, the case has been reassigned to a different team in the Child Abuse Unit and the investigation has resumed. We are now re-interviewing people. That's all I can say."

 

This is not the first time that Rabbi Bryks faced such accusations. A 1988 report by Winnipeg South Child and Family Services originating from a 14-year-old girl's allegations indicated that there was no evidence to support criminal wrongdoing; however, the report also characterized Rabbi Bryks' interactions with female students as inappropriate and unprofessional. The report also found that "if there is a child in the school that is currently being abused, the dynamics of the reaction of the staff, fellow students and other adults over the past couple of months might prevent any child from coming forth with the new disclosure."

 

And a year later, Winnipeg police investigated a complaint from a young boy alleging sex abuse, but the Crown Attorney's office did not believe that there was sufficient evidence against Bryks to lay criminal charges. Despite the passage of time, Herzlia-Adas Yeshrun continues to suffer the fallout surrounding their former spiritual leader's departure. Today, many people in the community question the process undertaken by the synagogue's leadership when these allegations originally surfaced in 1987. Instead of immediately contracting Child and Family Services, the synagogue conducted its own investigation by holding a series of vituperative board of directors meetings where the teenage girl's allegations about Rabbi Bryk's impropriety was first questioned.

 

"A pall hangs over the place. The issue of guilt is secondary. It's not what he did or didn't do - but what was said to each other," says Sherman Greenberg, the congregation's president between 1982 and 1986. "People who were formerly friends wouldn't talk to each other, or they would do things to each other. One person tried to get someone else fired. Some of these people now feel embarassed, ashamed, and kind of stupid." Greenberg and almost half of the board left the synagogue with approximately 30 other families and formed their own synagogue after the board voted to support Rabbi Bryks following Child and Family Service's finding of unprofessional conduct, in addition to the agency's observation of the creation of an environment preventing child abuse victims from coming forward, if child abuse was in fact occurring at the school. "Knowing what I know now, if I was ever in a similar situation, I would have a police investigation first."

 

Like the remainder of the congregants who supported and believed in Rabbi Bryks and wanted the shul to continue, Abe Borzykowski, the synagogue's vice president in 1987, remained as a member but now regrets not delegating the responsibility of investigating the allegations earlier.

 

"We should have let someone else handle it. We were people in good conscience wanting to solve problems, but we were in over our heads. The mistake we made destroyed friendships. The atmosphere was very uneasy and emotions ran very high. If we delegated it earlier, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

 

Board member Mel Craven was not one of Rabbi Bryks supporters after the Child and Family Services' report's release. "I was in shock that people would interpret it as completely exculpatory." During the board's deliberations about Rabbi Bryks, Craven suffered abuse from other congregants and was spat at in the shul. "We were shunned. If I was called up for an aliyah, some people walked out."

 

Craven acknowledges that some of the synagogue's problems might have been avoided if information hadn't been percolating among the synagogue's members following the board's meetings. "In hindsight, we should have reported to Child and Family Services first." After Rabbi Bryks left Herzlia-Adas Yeshrun in 1990, Craven, like most of the new synagogue's members, returned to the shul.

 

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."

 

Yellen agreed with Cooper's observations about the school's poisoned atmosphere. "The supercharged environment keeping kids from coming forward (if there was something to come forward about) might have been avoided. When the synagogue's boards finally decided to contact an outside agency, Yellen's agency could not investigate the allegations because Rabbi Bryks was on the agency's board of directors.

 

Still grieving the loss of his son, Martin Levin believes that the synagogue's board "has a lot to answer-- there was vast communal denial. Jews need to know that this can happen to us too and the notion of keeping things quiet stems from the paranoia of anti-Semites crawling out of the woodwork."

 

Composed of approximately 15,000 people, Winnipeg has a vibrant, small and insular Jewish community with a small-town feeling where everyone knows everybody. In fact, this correspondent is distantly related by marriage to Levin and Borzykowski.

 

Like her former spouse, Sara Levin thinks that the synagogue's board made an error in judgement by conducting its own initial inquiry. "I think it's horrific. It was a grave mistake not to have an outside agency handle it from the onset. It was a blunder."

 

One of the ways Levin plans to honour her son's memory is through Daniel's Hope, an organization she is forming to put child abuse survivors in touch with each other. Both Mr. and Mrs. Levin are upset that the Toronto police botched their investigation because the recording equipment used during their son's statement was broken. Daniel Levin didn't live long enough to record another statement.

 

Rabbi Bryks started at Herzlia-Adas Yeshrun in 1978 at age 24 after graduating from rabbinical college. Many of his opponents even characterize Rabbi Bryks as a charismatic personality who built up the shul's membership started the school (operated independently of the city's Jewish Board of Education) and ran his own Beit Din.

 

Rabbi Bryks later became embroiled in disputes with other leaders in Winnipeg's Jewish community over the validity of the city's eruv and its kosher food. In 1987 the Winnipeg Council of Rabbis wrote a letter to the editor of the Winnipeg Jewish Post & News alleging that Rabbi Bryks twice plagiarized from a book by an Ottawa Rabbi in his (Bryks' weekly Torah commentaries for the paper).

 

The bitter fights about Rabbi Bryks devastated the shul, according to Craven. Membership fell from 300 families to its present 125 families. The Torah Academy closed a year after Rabbi Bryks left Winnipeg.

 

Greenberg doesn't see much of a legacy from Rabbi Bryks' tenure. "By any measure of organizational success the whole thing imploding onto itself".

 

Rabbi Bryks refused to be interviewed for this article.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

CBC scores bronze medal for "Unorthodox Conduct"

CBC strikes it rich at N.Y. awards

by Janice Lee

Brunico Communications Inc.- January 30, 1995 - page 8

 

Playback - About Production, Broadcasting & Interactive Media in Canada

 

The winners of The New York Festivals' 1994 International TV Programming and Promotion Awards were announced in New York City on Jan. 20. Here is the rundown of how Canadians fared.

 

The cbc claimed six gold medals for Newswatch "You Can't Take It With You" (human interest), CBC Prime Time News "E. Annie Proulx" (arts), Dieppe (miniseries), Street Cents (teen programs), aidScare aidsCare (teen special) and The Diary of Evelyn Lau(performance).

 

Other gold medal recipients were the Variety Club of British Columbia for To Help Them All (information/magazine id), cjoh-tv for Nowhere to Hide (special report), tvontario for Blood and Belonging "Road To Nowhere" (national and international affairs), Telemagik Productions for Cirque du Soleil (performing arts) and Portfolio Film and Television/J.A. Delmage Productions in association with ytv for Groundling Marsh "Night and Day" (art direction).

 

cbc struck silver in New York as well with the 5th estate "Too Good For its Own Good" (best news reporter/corespondent), CBC Alberta News "Suspended Drivers at the Wheel" (investigative reporting) and the cbc Witness documentary, The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter (human relations).

 

Also picking up silver were Alma Productions for The Body Parts Business (investigative report - long-form), Morag Production for When Women Kill (social issues/ current events), Sullivan Entertainment for Road To Avonlea (family programs), Skyvision Entertainment for Robocop: The Series "The Future of Law Enforcement" (art direction) and Sleeping Giant Productions for Meeting The Crisis "Hivies" (lighting).

 

cbc scored bronze medals for 24 Hours "Unorthodox Conduct" (news documentary/special), the 5th estate "Crossing the Line" (investigative report - long- form), Venture (news magazine program) and Adrienne Clarkson Presents "Skin, Flesh and Bone" (direction).

 

Other bronze winners were Insight Production Company's Ready or Not "Dear Troy/Monkey See, Monkey Do" (youth programs), Forefront Productions' Madison "On The Curb/The Firefighter" (teen special) and the Variety Club of British Columbia's To Help Them All (copy writing).

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Bryks launches lawsuit in U.S. court against CBC, CNN

By Myron Love

Jewish Post and News, Wednesday, March 8, 1995

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks has struck back against allegations of sexual misconduct with lawsuits against both the CBC and CNN, seeking punitive damages of $10 million U.S. from each of the news organizations.

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

The civil suit, which was filed on February 21 in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, is in response to an I-Team documentary which was broadcast locally and nationally last winter - and later rebroadcast on CNN - which, according to the Statement of Claim, paint the former Herzlia Adas-Yeshurun rabbi as a "child molester, sexual deviate, pedophile, blackmailer, liar and hypocrite who is untrustworthy."

 

In the Statement of Claim, Bryks contends that "the program was libelous and contained statements (by several former synagogue members) that were false and defamatory" and demanded a full retraction and apology which was not forthcoming. The legal document charges that CBC Noah Erenberg and reporters Danielle Keefler and Heidi Graham (all three of whom were also named in the lawsuit along with CBC) knowingly broadcast the "defamatory and libelous matter in grossly irresponsible manner without consideration for the standards of information gathering and discrimination followed by responsible parties."

 

After leaving Winnipeg in 1990, Bryks found employment as a teacher and principal at a school for Russian Jewish immigrants called the Torah Academy - the same name as the Herzlia school he formed in Winnipeg - which is located in the Queens section of New York. As a result of the I- Team documentary, the Statement of Claim notes, he was dismissed from his job at the New York school at the end of June and has been unable to find another job as a rabbi and educator.

 

CBC Winnipeg producer Carl Karp is unfazed by the Bryks lawsuit. "We were informed of his intention to sue several months ago," he reports.

 

Karp says the I-Team stands by its story and the accuracy of the story. He notes that the I- Team, while no stranger to lawsuits, has never been successfully sued.

 

The defendants had 60 days to respond. Bryks' lawyer is Gary Jacobson of the firm Jacobson & Triggs. The presiding judge will be Judge Michael Mukasey who is currently handling the conspiracy trial of Sheik Omar Abel Rahman and his militant Muslim followers charged with conspiring to blow up New York landmarks last year. Bryks has chosen trial by jury.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Civil Procedure: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Immune

From Defamation Suit, Summary Added December 15, 1995

Bryks v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp.906 F.Supp. 204, 24 Media L. Rep. 1236

24 Media L. Rep. 1236

WESTLAW STATE BULLETIN

New York

December 15, 1995

 

Civil Procedure: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Immune From Defamation Suit

Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was immune from a defamation action regarding broadcasts of an investigative news report on the plaintiff. The CBC was a "foreign state" for purposes of the FSIA, and the FSIA's provision precluding actions for defamation applied to the "commercial activity" exception to immunity. CBC employees sued in their official capacities were also immune.

 

Bryks v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

 

(S.D.N.Y.)

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Libel chill leaves children's author feeling censored OPINIONS / Carol Matas's novel about a Jewish school and a child-abusing rabbi touched a nerve in Winnipeg. A synagogue cancelled her appearance amid threats of litigation.

By Marc Hubert

The Globe and Mall (Toronto) - December 19, 1995 

FALLOUT from a high-profile investigation of child-abuse allegations against a former Manitoba rabbi has created a new form of libel chill for a Winnipeg author of children's books. 

 

Carol Matas - Author

Carol Matas had been invited to speak in February at an interfaith luncheon sponsored by the Sisterhood of Winnipeg's Shaarey Zedek synagogue. But her appearance was cancelled after the congregation received a legal opinion suggesting the synagogue could be sued for publication of a libel if it permitted Matas to speak. 

"This is paranoia of the worst sort and censorship in the worst way. Libel chill isn't a strong enough term. Basically, they're censoring me and not the book. Somehow, I am no longer acceptable," Matas said recently. 

What's prompting the controversy is Matas's latest novel, The Primrose Path. Published by Winnipeg's Blizzard Publishing, it's the story of a Jewish school enduring a child-abusing rabbi. The case bears some similarities to a Winnipeg police investigation of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, former principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg. Now closed, Torah Academy was a school operated by Herzlia-Adas Yeshrun, an Orthodox congregation formerly led by Bryks, now living in New York. 

Book about Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

After a year-long review, Manitoba's public prosecutions office last month decided that no Criminal Code charges were warranted against Bryks, who was previously investigated for similar allegations by Winnipeg police and the city's child and family services department in 1987 and 1988. 

After a 1994 CBC documentary outlining other child-abuse allegations involving Bryks (which was broadcast before the police resumed their second investigation), the rabbi launched a defamation lawsuit against his accusers and the CBC. But beyond a preliminary notice, these cases have not progressed. Two years after the 1988 report by the city department, Bryks left Winnipeg for New York. 

While Matas says she was only asked to deliver a speech, the synagogue maintains that she was going to speak about her new book. By acquiescing to the threat of litigation, the synagogue's decision, to some, appears to be a highly unusual instance of the suppression of an author's freedom of expression, especially since no defamation lawsuits have been commenced against the book, which was published last September. 

Matas, who is emphatic that her book isn't based on Bryks, describes The Primrose Path as "a universal story which I based on research across North America. And in two other communities where I've spoken besides Winnipeg, people in the audience believe that the book is about a specific case in their community. It says to me that I'm doing my job as a writer because it is a universal story." 

Matas also says she is very upset about the synagogue's cancellation, initiated, it said, because of a "scheduling conflict." "I think it's shameful and outrageous. . . . And being unable to have me as a speaker because they're afraid that someone might sue them is scary business." 

Matas says she learned from Shaarey Zedek's president, Samuel Wilder, that her invitation had been cancelled because the synagogue's lawyers said that since "the story in The Primrose Path so closely parallels what happened in Winnipeg, the synagogue would be subject to a defamation action if they let me speak." 

Contacted earlier this month, Wilder refused to answer any questions for The Globe and Mail, saying "this isn't an issue for the press." 

Denise Waldman, president of the synagogue's Sisterhood, was equally reticent about answering questions and, she said, "if there is any Sisterhood board member who speaks to you, they will have to answer to me. I'm a young president of a flourishing sisterhood and we don't need any garbage." 

The Sisterhood's move is, however, attracting negative attention from both inside and outside Winnipeg. Penny Dickens, executive director of the Writers Union of Canada, for one, condemned the decision. "They took the easy way out. It certainly wasn't a heroic decision - they've silenced a writer. . . . This isn't chill, it's a major freeze." 

While characterizing libel chill as a term usually involving state action, Toronto criminal lawyer Clayton Ruby had "grave doubts" regarding the legal opinion. "Unless they knew in advance that she's going to be defaming someone, they wouldn't be responsible for giving her a platform." 

Ruby also deplored the Sisterhood's cancellation of Matas's address. "They don't understand literature and its role in a free society. It's a message from the community that we don't want to talk about that subject matter. And then authors won't write books like that. It's unhealthy and shortsighted." 

David Matas, a Winnipeg immigration lawyer and cousin of the author, agreed with Ruby. "Her work is a work of fiction. It doesn't identify a specific person. It's most unusual for a libel suit to come out of a fictional account," Matas said. 

However, Julian Porter, a Toronto lawyer noted for his expertise in libel and defamation, said that it is possible that the author of a fictional book could be sued for libel and that the synagogue could be sued, in turn, by allowing Carol Matas to speak. Generally speaking, he said, the test is if the work of fiction refers, or is capable of referring, to a real person. Although there are no Canadian precedents, civil liability for such cases has been found in the United States, England and Australia. 

Porter qualified his comments by noting that these types of cases are very rare. Yet, about 15 years ago, he successfully settled a libel case involving Toronto author Ian Adams, who wrote a novel suggesting that a government representative was part of a Communist spy ring. 

Porter predicted that to win such a case at trial a lawyer would have to put a number of people in the witness box, each of whom believed that the book was about the allegedly defamed person. To safely write a roman a clef, Porter recommended that writers should change a host of personal details. "Changing a couple of little things isn't enough." 

But Matas's Winnipeg-based publisher, Anna Synenko, dismisses the possibility of libel action involving The Primrose Path. "We haven't received any libel suits yet and I don't think we will. I really don't understand what the Sisterhood's problem is. The book is based on a large amount of research and not on one incident." 

Matas is the author of 15 books, most aimed at readers aged 10 to 17. Her novels include Daniel's Story, commissioned by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993, and Sworn Enemies, which won the National Association of Jewish Libraries' Sydney Taylor award in 1993.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

A former Winnipeg rabbi accused of sexual misconduct with students is suing C-B-C and C-N-N

Business Information Wire - March 21, 1995 Canadian Press

CROSS-CANADA DIGEST: Manitoba

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks has filed a lawsuit against the networks for airing an I-Team investigation into the sex allegations against him.

 

The documentary entitled "Unorthodox Conduct" was broadcast in March of last year by C-B-C and later on C-N-N.

 

Bryks refused to comment on the case, but his lawyer, Gary Jacobson, says the broadcast has cost Bryks his reputation. (Wpg Sun)

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Bryks v. CBC

Communications Daily - Tuesday, December 12, 1995, SECTION: Vol. 15, No. 238; Pg. 7

Warren Publishing, Inc.

 

FCC late Mon. released 2nd annual report on status of cable competition. Commission concluded: "Although some progress has begun toward a competitive marketplace for the distribution of video programming . . . cable television systems continue to enjoy market power in local markets."

 

Report's key findings cover industry growth, horizontal concentration, competitive entry, vertical integration and technological advances.

 

Commission said. Federal judge has dismissed defamation suit against Canadian Bcstg. Corp. (CBC) on ground that foreign-owned network was "immune" from jurisdiction of U.S. courts. However, U.S. Dist. Judge Michael Mukasey, N.Y., upheld portion of suit by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks against CNN, which carried Feb. 28, 1994, CBC report on sexual misconduct charges at Herzalia-Adas-Yeshurun Torah Academy in Winnipeg, where Bryks was principal and teacher 1978-1990. Bryks's attorney Gary Jacobson said his client was "clearly disappointed" that he wouldn't be able to pursue suit against CBC in U.S. but now may file separate action in Canada. Canadian govt. last week cleared Bryks of wrongdoing, Jacobson said. Robert Sack, attorney for CBC and CNN, said he was "pleased" by decision involving defendants and said CNN was "marginal" defendant, but if Bryks pursued case, "proceedings in New York make sense both for the plaintiff and CNN."

 

U.S. Supreme Court Mon. without comment rejected appeal of NFL rule that permits home games to be blacked out if they aren't sold out 72 hours in advance. Suit had been filed by Self-Help for Hearing Impaired Persons. High court ruling upheld decisions of 2 lower courts.

 

McMullen Group (MG) signed "binding agreement" to acquire several Liberty Sports assets in deal latter's Pres. Ed Frasier said is designed to unleash "entrepreneurial type of guidance" on several young ventures. McMullen will buy broadcast network America One TV as well as Prime Sports Interactive, Prime Sports Radio and Women's Basketball Assn. (WBA) for undisclosed amount. Frasier said money from sale will go to general Liberty coffers and aren't earmarked for any projects: "It wasn't an issue of needing the funds. It was an issue of having too much on our plate at one time."  Liberty doesn't plan to sell more properties, he said, "but I wouldn't rule it out." MG Exec. Vp David Lynch said MG will use purchase as "vehicle . . . to make other acquisitions." He said growth of interactivity and Internet use is expected to add value in long term. Parties said each operation will "continue to operate as they have in the past," with eventual relocation to Irving, Tex. hq.

Hearst and Cap/ABC have purchased 20% of Brazilian pay-TV company TVA from Brazil-based Abril Group. TVA owns 8 pay channels in major Brazilian cities, plus network of 42 affiliated systems. Hearst and Cap/ABC are partners in U.S. cable channels ESPN, Lifetime, A&E.

 

FCC is seeking comment on whether it should grant waiver of IVDS license rule that prohibits assignment or transfer of license not acquired through competitive bidding until 5-year construction benchmark (50% coverage) is met. Commission received request from licensee Alberto Garza. Comments are due Dec. 26, replies Jan. 4.

 

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Turner Non-Theatrical Services (TNTS) announced deal with USAir to provide new in-flight channel by Jan. Channel will carry TCM programming in seat systems of first and business classes.

 

Program Notes: BET International announced it would launch BET On Jazz channel in S. Africa by April 1. Channel will appear on country's MultiChoice package, which includes several international channels . . . ESPN 2 said it has reached 26.7 million homes . . .Golf Channel said it has passed 1995 goal of 600,000 subscribers, expects to reach 700,000 by Jan.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

 Editorial comment - A Second look at "Unorthodox Conduct"

Jewish Post and News, Wednesday, January 10, 1996

 

The Crown's announcement last month that it will not be pressing charges against Rabbi Ephraim Bryks raises serious questions about "Unorthodox Conduct", the documentary CBC television made about him nearly two years ago.

 

Produced by an investigative reporting team from CBC Winnipeg's "24 Hour" news show, "Unorthodox Conduct" painted a demonic portrait of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, former principal of Herzlia Synagogue's now-defunct Torah Academy.

 

The city's Child and Family Service concluded in a heavily publicized report in 1988 that his kissing and holding of students in his lap was "inappropriate and unprofessional", but not criminal.

 

"Unorthodox Conduct", however quoted a serious of parents as testifying that Bryks committed far more serious sexual molestation of their children in the privacy of his office.

The documentary took on an especially urgent, almost crusading tone, with the reporter disclosing that Bryks was now principal of a Jewish high school in Queens, New York.

 

Broadcast across Canada by CBC, "Unorthodox Conduct" was later telecast continent- wide on CNN and shortly afterwards, Bryks was dismissed from his job at the New York day school.

 

Now that the Crown has announced it will not press charges, the obvious question arises: How could it come to such a conclusion, after CBC produced such a damaging and detailed report about Bryks' sexual molestation of students at Torah Academy? And what does that say about the validity of the allegations made in "Unorthodox Conduct"?

 

The Crown Attorney won't answer those questions. But a Jewish Winnipegger who knows the families who provided key testimony for the documentary claims the Crown isn't pressing charges because only one of several former students alleging sexual molestation by the rabbi is willing to come forward, and "the Crown doesn't feel that's enough".

 

How credible was the testimony of that former student, if the Crown doesn't feel that alone is enough to warrant pressing criminal charges against Bryks? And why aren't two other former students willing to come forward and testify?

 

The answer, this Winnipegger continues, is that their parents fear the psychological trauma they might have to undergo, if cross-examined in court.

 

A case in Martinsville, Saskatchewan, two years ago showed accusations of sexual molestation of young children often doesn't stand up, when accusers and accused come under the scrutiny of lawyers in a courtroom.Two of the former students whose parents were interviewed anonymously in "Unorthodox Conduct" are in their mid-teens. If they're so emotionally fragile now that they are afraid of being subjected to such courtroom cross-examination, how reliable was their testimony, presented by CBC two years ago in "Unorthodox Conduct"?

 

Bryks began a lawsuit for defamation against the CBC and CNN in a New York court in the fall of 1994. By last December, according to The Globe and Mail, the suit hadn't progressed beyond his opening statement of claim.

 

If Bryks doesn't continue the lawsuit, the public will draw its own conclusions, despite the Crown's decision not to press charges. If he does proceed further and wins, "Unorthodox Conduct" is destined to become a case study for journalism students - an example of the weaknesses of this kind of journalistic "expose".

__________________________________________________________________________________

May 22, 1996

 

ROBERT L. TAPPER, Q.C.

WOLCH, PINX, TAPPER, SCURFIELD

Barristers and Solicitors

10th Fl. - 330 St. Mary Avenue

Winnipeg, Manitoba,, R3C 3Z5

Telephone No.: 949-1700

 

Solicitors for the Defendants

 

TO:

Pollock & Company

Barristers and Solicitors

1610 - 155 Carlton Street

Winnipeg, Manitoba

R3C 3H8

Per: Harvey Pollock, Q.C.

Solicitors for the Plaintiff

 

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Torts: CNN Did Not Defame Rabbi by Rebroadcasting Report

Summary Added July 02, 1996

Bryks v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. 928 F.Supp. 381, 24 Media L.

24 Media L. Rep. 2109

WESTLAW STATE BULLETIN

New York - July 02, 1996

 

Evidence was insufficient as a matter of law under New York law to establish gross irresponsibility on the part of CNN in rebroadcasting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) report regarding an investigation of a rabbi for child molestation. In seeking to hold CNN liable, the rabbi relied on prior suits against the CBC as establishing the general unreliability of its reporting. However, a federal district court in New York noted that the rabbi's evidence demonstrated only that CBC had lost a single libel suit in the 12 years before its broadcast of story in question.

 

Bryks v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

(S.D.N.Y.)

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Entertainment Law Reporter Bryks v. CNN

Entertainment Law Reporter - February, 1997

SECTION: RECENT CASES; Vol. 18, No. 9

 

CNN wins dismissal of defamation case arising out of its rebroadcast of investigative report produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, because CNN had no reason to doubt reliability of CBC or specific report, federal District Court rules.

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks is an American citizen who now lives in Queens, New York; but during the 1980s he was the principal and a teacher at an Orthodox Jewish school in Winnipeg, Canada. Something happened while Bryks was at that school; exactly what isn't clear from the case reports. What is clear, however, is that in 1994, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced and broadcast an investigative report that "examined allegations that [Bryks] had engaged in sexual misconduct with students" while he was at the Jewish school.

 

CBC offers its reports to other broadcasters through a syndicated news service, and CNN is a subscriber. As a result, CNN Headline News rebroadcast the CBC report about Bryks, virtually unedited.

 

In response to the CNN broadcast, Bryks sued CBC and CNN for libel in federal District Court in New York City. Early in the case, the court dismissed Bryks' suit against CBC, ruling that it was immune from suit in federal courts because it was an organ of the Canadian government. (ELR 18:3:14) The case proceeded, against CNN which enjoys no similar immunity.

 

Now, however, the court has dismissed the case against CNN as well, for another reason. Judge Michael Mukasey has granted CNN's motion for summary judgment, because although Bryks himself is a private figure, "allegations of sexual assault by a community religious leader on school-children surely are of legitimate public interest and concern." This meant that under New York law, Bryks had to show that CNN had rebroadcast the CBC report in a "grossly irresponsible manner." But as a "republisher" of material from CBC, New York law permitted CNN to rely on CBC's research unless CNN "had, or should have had, substantial reasons to question the accuracy" of CBC's report.

 

Bryks attempted to show that CNN had reasons to question CBC's accuracy; but Judge Mukasey was not persuaded. The judge reviewed Bryks' arguments that CNN had reason to doubt CBC's accuracy in general, and the accuracy of the offending report in particular. But the judge did not agree with either argument. Even if the evidence Bryks offered was credited, Judge Mukasey concluded, it was "insufficient to prove gross irresponsibility' on the part of CNN."

 

Bryks v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., 928 F.Supp. 381, 1996 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 8300

(S.D.N.Y. 1996) [ELR 18:9:21]

LOAD-DATE: May 21, 1997

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Jurisdiction in defamation action against Canadian Broadcasting Corp

Aug.1996 - Entertainment Law Reporter-Bryks v. CBC

Entertainment Law Reporter, August, 1996

SECTION: RECENT CASES; Briefly Noted; Vol. 18, No. 3

 

In a defamation case filed by an Orthodox Jewish rabbi as a result of a report aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), an excerpt from which was then rebroadcast in the United States by CNN, a federal District Court in New York City has held that federal courts do not have subject matter jurisdiction over the CBC or its employees. Judge Mariam Cedarbaum noted that the exclusive basis for federal jurisdiction over "foreign sovereigns" is the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act; and that Act makes "foreign states . . . immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States." The Act defines "foreign state" to include a corporation which is an "organ of a foreign state." The CBC is a "crown corporation" that is "wholly owned by the Canadian government," and thus, Judge Cedarbaum concluded, it is immune from suit in federal courts in the United States. The judge also ruled that CBC's immunity extends to its employees acting within the scope of their employment, because a suit against such individuals "is the practical equivalent of a suit against the sovereign directly."

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shearis Israel: providing Judaic background to our Russian brethen
March 1, 2001

http://www.www.shearis.org

Shearis Israel - About Us

http://www.www.shearis.org

 

Shearis Israel is a labor of love, an undertaking to provide Judaic background to our Russian brethren. Over a decade ago, our Rabbinic leadership and lay leaders rose to the challenge of the return of our Russian Jewish cousins to freedom. As they made their exodus from slavery in the former Soviet Union to freedom in the United States, they arrived with very little. Shearis has provided a yeshiva in which a Torah education and an advanced secular curriculum could be attained. Now in its eleventh year, Shearis touches children and their families alike, bringing the warmth of Torah and its hertiage to three generations at once. Grandparents who still remember prewar Europe and their roots in Judaism help influence their grandchildren, while the students' parents, members of the lost generation, are in turn influenced by the young Shearis student body. 

 

The spiritual in gathering of the exiles, is a leading cause of our time, as proclaimed by this generation's Gedolai Yisroel. They have appealed continuously for all to join Shearis in forging the furture of Klal Yisroel. 

 

Dor L'Dor, the latest project at Shearis Israel, promises to be one of its most rewarding. It is a program that provides for the vast, silent majority of the Russian Jewish children, many of whom are lost in the public school system. 

 

Dor L'Dor provides a Sunday school program that enriches the lives of these children, and whets their intellectual appetites for Torah. It also hopes to institute adult-education programs to further the bond between mainstream Judaism and the Russian Jewish community, in essence helping to create that community.

Join us...Shearis needs your help both financially, as well as proactively...join and help provide adult classes or act as a mentor for public school attendees. 

 

Whatever the level of involvement, Shearis wants you! 

-------------------------

Programs

• Elementary School: Grades 1-8
• New High School: Grades 9 and growing...
• Dor L'Dor: a Sunday morning,special project educating public school attendees
• Adult Education: various evening classes foradults
• Mishmar/Athletics Program: biweekly program that combines basketball/swimming withdinner and learning with chavrusas
• Congregation Zichron Aharon Tzvi: an ongoing Russian minyan led by Yaakov Lomner
• Congregation Shaarei Emunah: a new and exciting, innovative shul spearheaded by Shearis rebbi, Rabbi Mordechai Tokarsky
• A Shearis Israel Purim
• A Shearis Israel Pesach
• Summer Camp
• Mishmar Program
• Adult Education
• The Great Debate

-------------------------

The Board

The Shearis Israel Family

Rabbinical Honorary Board Rav Avrohom Pam Rav Yaakov Perlow Rav Aharon Schechter Rav Elya Svei Vaad HaChinuch Rav Feivel Cohen Rav Hillel David Rav Yakov Horowitz Rav Chaim Weinberg

Honorary Chairmen Lord Immanuel Jakobovitz Chief Rabbi Emeritus British Commonwealth Rabbi Kenneth Hain Spiritual Leader Cong. Beth Shalom Walter H. Weiner Chairman and CEO, Republic National Bank Faculty Rabbi E. Bryks Rabbi E. Washovsky

Board of Directors
Shimon Lefkowitz, Chairman Joseph Berliner, Esq. Sruly Bollag Shmuel Calko MosheCohen Shlomo Cohen, Esq. Jack Freidman Ron Hersh Baruch Hertz David Horowitz Heshy Kaszirer Rabbi Mutty Katz		Israel Lefkowitz Hershel Leier Nosson M. Munk Mordechai Neustadt Moshe Plaut David Reiter Chaim Rosenwasser Heshy Rubin Avi Schick, Esq. David Seidemann, Esq. B.Z. Weiss, Esq. Hirsch Wolf

-------------------------

Contact Us:

ADDRESS:	3574 Nostrand Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11229
PHONE:	1-888-4-SHARIS (1-888-474-2747) or in New York City, (718) 891-4333
FAX:	(718) 624-4983
EMAIL:	info@ShearisIsrael.org

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Queens Yeshiva Boss is a Molester:  Boy's Mom  

by Douglas Montero

New York Post - March 31, 2001

TRAGEDY: Photo caption: Sara Leven says son Daniel, who committed suicide, was molested by a rabbi.- Greig Reekie

 

March 31, 2002 -- SARA LEVEN found her 17-year-old son Daniel blue-faced, hanging from the shower curtain rod - a tie pinched around his neck.

 

The vision gnaws at Leven's heart because the rabbi she claims molested her boy when he was 5 - which she believes drove her son to suicide - is free and teaching kids at a Queens yeshiva.

 

The 57-year-old Canadian has pursued Rabbi Ephraim B. Bryks, 49, since her son's death in 1993. Winnipeg. Montreal. Queens.

 

"It never goes away," said Leven in a shaken voice. "It's unfinished business. He's never been brought to justice and I live with it every day.

 

"He's alive. He's thriving. I have to reveal who he really is."

 

Bryks, a respected scholar, a Queens religious-court judge and a Renaissance man in the city's Orthodox community, was never charged after investigations by police, a social-service agency and Orthodox Jewish leaders here and in Canada.

 

"She's chasing him," said Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, administrator at the Yeshiva Berachel David-Torah HS in Flushing, which Bryks created and operates. "The accusations are baseless, they keep coming up. He is not an animal."

 

Yet there have been at least three other known child-molestation allegations against Bryks, in Winnipeg, Canada, dating to 1988 when he ran a yeshiva attended by Daniel Leven.

 

A claim by a 14-year-old girl spurred a 1988 investigation by Winnipeg Child and Family Services, which cleared Bryks of any criminal wrongdoing but criticized the rabbi for tickling, hugging and letting students sit on his lap.

 

The report also noted that accusers faced a backlash so intense in the close-knit Jewish community, it "might prevent any child from coming forth with the disclosure."

 

After the allegations, Bryks hopscotched to Montreal and later to the former Torah Academy for Girls in Forest Hills, where he served as principal from 1992 to 1995.

 

Daniel Leven first spoke of the alleged attacks in 1993 when he described how the rabbi gave him candy and warned him "God" would punish him if he talked, according to his mother. Sara Leven said she called the cops and they took a statement from her son.

 

Daniel committed suicide on Yom Kippur - the day after cops called to say their tape machine had failed to record the statement.

 

A 1994 Canadian Broadcasting Corp. investigative report, which Bryks complained defamed him, detailed an alleged 1989 molestation of a 7-year-old boy. No charges were filed because investigators said it was a child's word against a rabbi's.

 

When the broadcast was seen by school officials at the Forest Hills Torah Academy in 1995 - and the allegations passed on to New Russian World, the city's Russian daily newspaper - parents, mostly Russian Jews, went "berserk," said a Brooklyn rabbi.

 

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

 

Bryks was "fired," said Rabbi Nisanov, a teacher at the Academy. Nisanov, who doesn't believe the allegations, said he helped Bryks open his own yeshiva on 78th Road in Queens. He said 45 boys were enrolled there.

 

Leven tracked down Bryks and pounced 18 months ago. A group of Queens rabbis took the case to the Rabbinical Association there.

 

"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.

 

Bryks did not respond to repeated phone calls and visits to his house and yeshiva. His wife, however, said, "This is ancient history. It's total nonsense."

 

Undeterred, Leven vows to continue pursuing Bryks. "It makes me feel horrible knowing that he is still involved with children," she said.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Canadian legal filings 

(FYI: Rabbi Bryks (statement of claim and defense) abandoned this lawsuit)

The Queen's Bench - Winnipeg Centre

Between: Ephraim Bryks, plaintiff -and- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Noah Erenberg, Danielle Keefler, and Heidi Graham, defendants.

 

STATEMENT OF CLAIM

 

TO THE DEFENDANT:

A LEGAL PROCEEDING HAS BEEN COMMENCED AGAINST YOU by the plaintiff. The claim made against you is set out in the following pages.

 

IF YOU WISH TO DEFEND THIS PROCEEDING, you or a Manitoba lawyer acting for you must prepare a Statement of Defence in Form 18A prescribed by the Queen's Bench Rules, serve it on the plaintiff, and file it in this court office, WITHIN TWENTY DAYS after this Statement of Claim is served on you, if you are in Manitoba.

 

If you are served in another province or territory of Canada or in the United States of America, the period for serving and filing your Statement of Defence is forty days. If you are served outside Canada and the United States of America, the period is sixty days.

 

IF YOU FAIL TO DEFEND THIS PROCEEDING, JUDGMENT MAY BE GIVEN AGAINST YOU IN YOUR ABSENCE AND WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE TO YOU.

 

DATE: February 15, 1996.

 

Issued by: L. Blue, Deputy Registrar - Court of Queen's Bench

Law Courts Building

204-408 York Avenue

Winnipeg, MB R3C 0P9

 

TO: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

541 Portage Avenue

Winnipeg, MB R3B 2G1

 

AND TO: Noah Erenberg c/o Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

541 Portage Avenue

Winnipeg, MB R3B 2G1

 

AND TO: Danielle Keefler

c/o Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

541 Portage Avenue

Winnipeg, MB R3B 2G1

 

AND TO: Heidi Graham

c/o Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

541 Portage Avenue

Winnipeg, MB R3B 2G1

 

CLAIM

1. The plaintiff seeks an Order from this Honourable Court restraining and enjoining the defendants from re-publishing, re-broadcasting and disseminating any portion or portions thereof of the defamatory Program, hereinafter set forth, to anyone.

2. In addition, the plaintiff claims against the defendants, jointly and severally:

• a) General Damages in an amount to be determined by this Honourable Court;
• b) Special Damages in an amount to be proved at the Trial of this action;
• c) Punitive, aggravated and/or exemplary damages in an amount to be determined by this Honourable Court;
• d) Pre-judgment interest from the date notice was provided to the defendants until Judgment;
• e) Post-judgment interest;
• f) Costs on a solicitor and client basis;
• g) Such further and other relief as to this Honourable Court may seem just.

3. The plaintiff is a rabbi ordained in the Orthodox Jewish faith and at all times material hereto was the rabbi of the Herzlia-Adas-Yeshurun Synagogue (hereinafter referred to as the "Synagogue"), the acting school principal and a teacher of the affiliated school, Torah Academy, and resided in the City of Winnipeg in the Province of Manitoba. At present, the plaintiff works part-time for a financial investment firm and resides in the County of Queens in the State of New York, United States of America.

 

4. The defendant Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "CBC") is a government corporation created by Part III of The Broadcasting Act, R.S.C. 1985 c. B-11, as amended, (hereinafter referred to as the "Act"), maintains business offices in Winnipeg, aforesaid and produces news programs for broadcast on television to be viewed by the public at large. CBC's statutory mandate is governed by s.30 of the Act. At all times material hereto CBC employed its co-defendants in positions hereinafter set forth.

 

5. The defendant Noah Erenberg (hereinafter referred to as "Erenberg") resides in Winnipeg, aforesaid and at all times material hereto was employed by CBC as a producer of television news.

 

6. The defendant Danielle Keefler (hereinafter referred to as "Keefler") resides in Winnipeg, aforesaid and at all times material hereto was employed by CBC as a reporter for television news.

 

7. The defendant Heidi Graham (hereinafter referred to as "Graham") resides in Winnipeg, aforesaid and at all times material hereto was employed by CBC as a researcher for television

 

8. On or about February 28, 1994, CBC produced and broadcast to a local and national viewing audience a television program entitled "Unorthodox Conduct" (hereinafter referred to as the "Program") which was the product of a joint venture between "CBC Prime Time News", a national nightly news program and, "CBC Winnipeg". The Program's content asserted that the plaintiff had engaged in gross conduct of a criminal nature which included acts of homosexual pediophilism and sexual assault against children who attended the Synagogue and Torah Academy and, acts of sexual assault against congregants of the Synagogue. On or about February 28, March 1 and March 5, 1994, CBC re-broadcast the entire Program, portions thereof and, additional reports relating to the Program, in Canada and elsewhere which too were viewed by a national and international audience. Furthermore, CBC made the Program available to its affiliate stations and other television networks within and outside Canada and to other broadcasters for the purposes that it be aired on other occasions and, be viewed by a wider audience which the plaintiff alleges occurred.

 

9. On or about February 28, 1994 the Cable News Network, Inc., "CNN", a company duly incorporated pursuant to the laws of the State of Georgia with offices in the County and State of New York, engaged in the business of broadcasting and distributing television programing, broadcast the Program to a massive, worldwide viewing audience across its global network.

 

10. The Program contained false, defamatory, slanderous, malicious, reckless, willful, libelous statements and representations concerning the plaintiff, particulars of which are set forth in the following segments:

 

a) Concerning the plaintiff's role as Rabbi, principal and teacher, the Program broadcast the following: Pamela Wallin: Coming up next, shame and scandal at an Orthodox School in Winnipeg.

 

CBC Narrator: Did this Rabbi abuse his position and pupils under his control? (Stated with a picture of the plaintiff on the screen with "Unorthodox Conduct" beneath his picture.)  CBC Narrator: Unorthodox Conduct, an investigative documentary about trust and betrayal. (Stated while the plaintiff is shown walking down the street very near a camera person with the title "Unorthodox Conduct" below the picture of the plaintiff as he walks down the street.)

 

Peter Mansbridge: This is the story of a powerful man and the shocking accusations that he abused that power with children that he was supposed to protect ... Prime Time News and CBC Winnipeg have uncovered some disturbing stories. Four former students who accuse Rabbi Bryks of sexual abuse ... a warning now ...

 

b) Concerning Daniel Levin, a former student at the Torah Academy, the Program broadcast the following:

 

Martin Levin: He is not just a fraud and a charlatan, but really wicked ... and I don 't know how many people he's hurt.

 

Kaye Levin: I am so tremendously angry and so deeply hurt that someone could do that to a small child.

 

Kaye Levin: In May of 1993 he started having memories of being sexually abused by the Rabbi and principal at Torah Academy. He was sitting on his lap in the Rabbi 's office and the Rabbi was ... it's so hard for me to say ...

 

Martin Levin: ... he was fondling ...

 

Kaye Levin: ... 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 a blue wrapper, I think it says "Elite " on it ... he even remembered the candy.

 

Martin Levin: This internal mechanism ... it's got to be a mistake... but instantly I knew he was telling the truth.

 

Kaye Levin: And then he said he had a memory and he started coughing and spitting up mucous ... and he started crying and he said 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 everything up. That was another memory.

 

Martin Levin: He did say that Bryks said things ... I wondered why he kept quiet ... and Daniel said Bryks said to me "God will punish you if you speak ".

 

Keefler: At a memorial service one month after Daniel's suicide, a family friend delivered a message from Daniel's father, a message that hinted at what may have caused Daniel Levin to take his own life.

 

Unidentified man: No doubt most of you here today didn't really know our son and brother Daniel, or at least not since he was very young.  You're here to show concern for his family. Some of you may even be here because his death is a grim reminder of a bleak and sinister stain on the Jewish community.

 

c) Concerning a fourteen-year-old girl identified only as a former student at Torah Academy, the Program broadcast the following:

 

Keefler: A fourteen-year-old complained that the Rabbi often sat on her lap, touched her and tickled her and talked about sex. Once, she says he even licked her face.

 

d) Concerning a 1987 Synagogue Board of Inquiry investigating allegations of plaintiff misconduct which heard and considered statements from the fourteen-year-old girl, aforesaid, and from two unidentified women who voiced complaints and which Synagogue Board, having considered the evidence before it and dismissing all allegations and determining not to take any disciplinary action against the plaintiff, the Program broadcast the following:

 

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 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.

 

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 that we were being threatened individually because of information that the Rabbi had about us in our personal lives that would be used against us.

 

Judith Silver: Well, he said quite clearly "I have secrets on all of you."

 

e) Concerning a March 1988 written report issued by the Winnipeg Child and Family Services Agency following its two-month investigation into allegations of plaintiff misconduct, which said report concluded that no criminal laws had been violated, the Program broadcast the following:

 

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.

 

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.

 

f) Concerning another former student at Torah Academy, the Program broadcast the following:

 

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 counselling 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.

 

g) Concerning the plaintiff's activities since leaving Winnipeg in 1990, the Program broadcast the following:

 

Keefler: Today Rabbi Bryks is a success story in the Queens [New York] Orthodox community. The school was desperate for a principal, desperate to give young Russian Jews a place to study.

 

Keefler: Joel Maslovsky, the board s president at the time, and other board members, refused to be interviewed. In a letter, the board defended its decision to keep Bryks on, saying that there were no further occurrences.

 

h) In addition, the Program broadcast the following:

 

Keefler: Many in the Jewish community want the door on the Bryks affair kept shut. But not the victims parents.

 

Disguised mother: It's time for the community to stop covering it up. I think there's a great fear in the Jewish community, because of anti-Semitism, that we can't air our dirty laundry, and it's time, and the Jewish community really has a lot to answer for here.

 

Keefler: Former board member Judy Silver still has many regrets.

 

Silver: We thought we could keep it among ourselves, keep it a secret. That no one ever has to know that this happened in our synagogue. Yes, we were ashamed. We were ashamed that we hired this man and let this happen.

 

Martin Levin: The irony is that you send your child to a school where you think, this of all places, he will be safe.

 

Kaye Levin: We've lost a child through this. And nothing, nothing that is ever done to Rabbi Bryks could ever bring it back ... Daniel can never come back. His life was destroyed by this.

 

11. The plaintiff says and alleges that the statements and representations broadcast in the Program aforesaid, in their plain and ordinary meaning were understood to mean, did mean, and were intended by the defendants to mean that:

 

a) In 1983 Bryks engaged in an act of fellatio with Daniel Levin, a former student at the Torah Academy, resulting in such trauma and emotional disturbance to Daniel Levin as to cause him to take his own life in or about October 1993;

 

b) The plaintiff sexually fondled an unidentified female Torah Academy student;

 

c) The plaintiff sexually fondled an unidentified seven-year-old boy while the boy was in the first grade at the Torah Academy;

 

d) The plaintiff sexually fondled an unidentified female student in his office in the Torah Academy, and admonished her that "God will punish you" if she told anyone;

 

e) During a 1987 inquiry by the Synagogue Board into charges against the plaintiff wherein an unidentified female student and two unidentified women from the Synagogue charged that the plaintiff had sexually fondled them, the plaintiff threatened Board members with exposure of personal information about them; and,

 

f) The plaintiff abused his position of authority and trust as a rabbi and breached his fudiciary duties.

 

12. Furthermore, the plaintiff says and alleges that the statements and representations broadcast, aforesaid, in their plain and ordinary meaning were understood to mean, did mean, and were intended by the defendants to mean that the plaintiff is a criminal, a child molester, a sexual deviate, a pedophile, a blackmailer, untrustworthy, a liar, a hypocrite, a person who should be incarcerated in a jailing institution, a person who is unfit to be a rabbi, who is unfit to be a spiritual leader of a Synagogue, who is unfit to be a principal of a school, who is unfit to be a teacher, and a person hired in New York state as a school principal out of desperation.

 

13. Further and in the alternative, by way of innuendo, the plaintiff says and alleges that the statements and representations broadcast, aforesaid, in their plain and ordinary meaning were understood to mean, did mean, and were intended by the defendants to mean that the plaintiff is a criminal, a child molester, a sexual deviate, a pedophile, a blackmailer, untrustworthy, a liar; a hypocrite, a person who should be incarcerated in a jailing institution, a person who is unfit to be a rabbi, who is unfit to be a spiritual leader of a Synagogue, who is unfit to be a principal of a school, who is unfit to be a teacher, and a person hired in New York state as a school principal out of desperation.

 

14. The plaintiff says that at no time has he ever engaged in any acts of homosexual pediophilism nor has he ever breached his fiduciary duties or trust owed to any student or congregant of the Torah Academy or Synagogue. At all times material hereto he suffers no anti-social personality disorder, no pedophilic tendencies, no sexual paraphilic nor any mental disorder of any kind whatsoever.

 

15. At no time has the plaintiff ever threatened anyone with exposure of personal information as alleged.

 

16. At no time has the plaintiff ever been charged with, or convicted of, any offense prescribed by the Criminal Code of Canada, and more specifically, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, sexual interference, sexual touching (invitation to), fraud, criminal breach of trust or uttering threats.

 

17. As a result of the defendants' false, defamatory, slanderous, malicious, reckless, willful and libelous broadcasts, publications, and dissemination to local, national and international audiences, the plaintiff suffered the following grievous injuries, for which he claims damages:

 

a) Irreversible destruction of reputation and, loss of standing in the community at large and specifically, in the world Jewish community and in particular the New York Jewish community;

 

b) Loss of professional standing in the business community of New York and elsewhere;

c) Loss of employability in his learned occupations of choice:

d) Humiliation and shunning;

e) Stress, anxiety and depression;

f) Sleep disturbance.

 

18. Furthermore, CBC is subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights Freedoms (hereinafter referred to as the "Charter"). In addition to being false, defamatory, slanderous, malicious, reckless, willful, and libelous, the statements and representations contained in the Program which were broadcast and re-broadcast to said viewing audiences by CBC violated the plaintiff's right to reputation, privacy security of the person guaranteed by Section 7 of the Charter. Consequently, the plaintiff relies on Section 32 of the Charter and claims damages, all to be proved at the trial of this action.

 

19. At all times material hereto the defendants exercised bad faith and were determined to, and did author, produce, publish and broadcast the Program in a malicious manner intending to defame and constitutionally violate the plaintiff and to subject him to public contempt, disgrace, scorn, prejudice and ridicule both personally, professionally and in business, with the ultimate intent of destroying his reputation in the community at large and, specifically in the worldwide Jewish community. By reason of the publications, broadcasts and re-broadcasts the plaintiff has sustained grievous personal injuries, professionally and in business, has been held up to public contempt, disgrace, scorn, prejudice and ridicule, has suffered grave impairment of his good name, business and professional reputation and social standing, has lost the esteem and respect of the worldwide Jewish community, his friends, acquaintances and business associates, and suffered great pain and mental anguish, all of which he will continue to suffer for the rest of his life. For defamation, slander, libel, invasion of privacy, and violation of his constitutional rights and liberties regarding security of the person the plaintiff claims against each defendant punitive, aggravated and/or exemplary damages.

 

20. Further and in the alternative, at the time CBC, Erenberg, Keefler and Graham authored, produced, published and broadcast the Program, each said defendant was reckless, careless and negligent, giving rise to damages for which the plaintiff claims, particulars of which are:

 

a) In failing to take reasonable and appropriate measures to verify the truthfulness and accuracy of the statements and representations;

 

b) In failing to make any or any adequate inquiry of the plaintiff prior to the Program's broadcast permitting him the opportunity to furnish explanation and thereby avert any such falsehoods from being disseminated;

 

c) In broadcasting the Program causing grievous injury to the plaintiff when the defendants knew or ought to have known that the said content was untrue and defamatory.

 

21. On or about February 17, 1994 the plaintiff notified the defendants in writing that he had learned, through television and other advertising, that the Program would air on CBC and advised them that such characterizations and allegations aforesaid were untrue. Furthermore, the plaintiff expressly put the defendants on notice that he would hold them accountable and legally liable if the Program would be broadcast as scheduled and advertised. In spite of such notice, the defendants broadcast the Program to the public viewing audience. Furthermore, on or about March 10, 1994, the plaintiff notified the defendants in writing that the Program was libelous and contained statements which were false and defamatory and demanded a full retraction and immediate apology. Upon receipt of the said notice, the defendants refused to provide any retraction or apology and on or about August 25, 1994 intentionally, and with malice, in a high-handed and arrogant manner re-published and re-broadcast the Program, unaltered, to a massive viewing audience thereby causing further injury and insult to the plaintiff. As such, the plaintiff claims punitive, aggravated and/or exemplary damages.

 

22. In or about 1990 the plaintiff and his family re-located to Queens, New York, in response to his acceptance of a principalship and teaching position at a Torah Academy. In or about June 1994, and by reason of the Program being broadcast to a New York audience, the plaintiff was dismissed from his employment. Since then the plaintiff has been unable to procure gainful, long- standing full-time employment in his occupations of choice and claims, as against each defendant, his past, present and future loss of income, all to be proved at the trial of this action.

 

23. Additionally. the plaintiff says and alleges that at no time did he consent to his name and personality being used for public broadcast or for commercial profit by CBC. The plaintiff claims that CBC for gain and profit wrongfully invaded his privacy and is liable to him in damages for all monetary enrichment resulting thereof.

 

24. The plaintiff says that CBC is vicariously liable for the recklessness, carelessness and negligence of its co-defendants and pleads and relies upon the principle of respondeat superior.

 

25. The plaintiff pleads and relies on The Defamation Act R.S.M. 1987, C.D.

 

20, The Broadcasting Act, R.S.C. 1985, C.B-11, each as amended, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

   

DATE: February 15, 1996

 

POLLOCK & COMPANY

1610-155 Carlton Street

Winnipeg, MB R3C 3H8

 

HARVEY I. POLLOCK, Q.C.

Telephone: 956-0450

Facsimile: 947-0109

Solicitor for the plaintiff

File No. Cl 96-01-95742

THE QUEEN'S BENCH

Winnipeg centre

 

BETWEEN:

EPHRAIM BRYKS, Plaintiff,

- and -

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, NOAH ERENBERG, DANIELLE KEEFLER, and

HEIDI GRAHAM,

Defendants.

 

STATEMENT OF DEFENCE

WOLCH, PINX, TAPPER, SCURFIELD

Barristers and Solicitors

10th Floor - 330 St. Mary Avenue

Winnipeg, Manitoba

R3C 3Z5

 

Solicitors for the Defendants

(ROBERT L. TAPPER, Q.C.)

Telephone No. 949-1700

Fax: 947-2593

File No.961041

 

THE QUEEN'S BENCH

Winnipeg Centre

BETWEEN :

EPHRAIM BRYKS,

Plaintiff,

 

- and -

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, NOAH ERENBERG, DANIELLE KEEFLER, and

 

HEIDI GRAHAM,

Defendants.

 

STATEMENT OF DEFENCE

1.The defendants admit the allegations made in paragraphs 3 (with the exception of the last sentence thereof), 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (with the exception of the last sentence thereof), 11 (with the exception of subparagraph (e) thereof), and 16.

 

2. The defendants deny the allegations in paragraphs 1, 2, 9, 10, l1(e), 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, and 24.

 

3. The defendants have no knowledge of the allegations in paragraph 3 (in so far as the last sentence thereof is concerned), the last sentence of paragraph 8, and 22.

 

4. As relates to paragraph 9 of the Statement Claim, the defendants state that CNN ran a two minute segment on March 1st, 1994, summarizing the program. This was run at approximately 3:00 a.m. and the defendants put the plaintiff to the proof of whom the audience was.

 

5. With respect to paragraph 24, the defendants admit that CBC is vicariously liable for the conduct of the personal defendants.

 

6. With respect to paragraph 25 of the Statement of Claim, the defendants admit that the Defamation Act applies, but state that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has no application.

 

7. With respect to paragraphs 18 and 19 of the Statement of Claim, the defendants state that this paragraph is misdirected and irrelevant. They state further that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has no application herein, that the actions of the defendant CBC in broadcasting any subjects are not governmental actions subject to the aforesaid Charter, and that this is private litigation not subject to the aforesaid Charter. They state further that the aforesaid Charter does not, and was never intended to convey rights of damages in defamation cases.

 

8. The defendants deny paragraph 10 of the Statement of Claim. They deny that the statements referenced thereunder are false, slanderous, malicious, reckless wilful or libelous. On the contrary, they state the statements are true in substance and in fact, and thus are not defamatory. Particulars of this statement follow.

 

9. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments in paragraph 10 (a) of the Statement of Claim; the defendants state that the allegations referenced thereunder are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

10. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (b) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that the allegations referenced thereunder are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

11. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (c) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact.

 

12. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (d) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

13. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (e) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

14. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (f) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

15. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (g) of the Statement of Claim.

 

16. The defendants admit that CBC broadcast the comments attributed to its broadcast as alleged in paragraph 10 (h) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of publicinterest made honestly and without malice.

 

17. The defendants admit the meaning attributed to its broadcast referenced in paragraph 11 (a) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact.

 

18. The defendants admit the meaning attributed to its broadcast referenced in paragraph 11 (b) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact.

 

19. The defendants admit the meaning attributed to its broadcast referenced in paragraph 11 (c) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact.

 

20. The defendants admit the meaning attributed to its broadcast referenced in paragraph 11 (d) of the Statement of Claim. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact.

 

21. The defendants admit the meaning attributed to its broadcast referenced in paragraph 11 (e) of the Statement of Claim with the exception of the words "sexually fondled". The defendants state that the broadcast that the women received unwanted sexual advances. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact.

 

22. The defendants admit the meaning attributed to its broadcast as referenced in paragraph 11 (f) of the Statement of Claim. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

23. Contrary to paragraph 12 of the Statement of Claim, the defendants state that the broadcast did not label the conduct of the plaintiff as criminal. Nor did they suggest the plaintiff ought to be incarcerated in a "jailing institution" (sic). Nor did the defendants make the suggestion that the plaintiff was hired in New York as an act of desperation. Nor did the defendants make the suggestion that the plaintiff was a "blackmailer". The defendants accept the remaining suggestions referenced in paragraph 12 of the Statement of Claim as being made by them. The defendants state that these comments are true in substance and in fact. To the extent any of these comments consisted of expressions of opinion, the defendants repeat the allegations of fact as are elaborated upon herein and state that the broadcast constituted fair comment upon issues of public interest made honestly and without malice.

 

24. As relates to paragraph 13 of the Statement of Claim, the defendants repeat their allegations as stated in paragraph 22 above.

 

25. The defendants deny the first sentence of paragraph 14 of the Statement of Claim. As expressed in paragraphs above herein, the defendants state these allegations are true in substance and in fact. The defendants have no knowledge of the matters referred to in the second sentence of paragraph 14 and put the plaintiff to the strict proof thereof.

 

26. The defendants admit, as alleged in paragraph 16 of the Statement of Claim, that no criminal charges have been preferred to date, but state that a criminal investigation was commenced and concluded, with its conclusions being referenced to the standard of proof in criminal cases.

 

27. The defendants deny that the plaintiff suffered the losses complained of in paragraph 17 of the Statement of Claim and put the plaintiff to the strict proof thereof.

 

28. The defendants deny as alleged in paragraph 19 of the Statement of Claim, that they exercised bad faith or malice. They intended, rather, in good faith, and based upon information which they had researched thoroughly, and believed to be true, that they were acting on a public duty to convey information of importance to the community at large.

 

29. The defendants further deny the damages and losses alleged by the plaintiff in paragraph 20 of the Statement of Claim, and put the plaintiff to the strict proof thereof.

 

30. The defendants specifically deny paragraph 20 of the Statement of Claim. At all times material hereto, the defendants believed that each component of the broadcast was true in substance and in fact. They took all reasonable and appropriate steps to insure the accuracy of their information.

 

31. Contrary to paragraph 21 of the Statement of Claim, whilst the defendants admit the plaintiff forwarded a notice to them, they deny their refusal to apologize, or their decision to broadcast was motivated by high-handedness or arrogance, but state rather that they believed at all times they were acting in good faith and in the public interest.

 

32. The defendants have no knowledge of the matters referred to in paragraph 22 of the Statement of Claim and put the plaintiff to the strict proof thereof.

 

33. The defendants deny that the plaintiff had any privacy rights as alleged in paragraph 23 of the Statement of Claim.

 

34. The defendants submit that the action be dismissed with costs on a solicitor and client basis.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Battling a 'Ghost' From Past

By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer

Newsday - May 26, 2003, 7:08 PM EDT

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks compares the complaints against him to a ghost that trails him from city to city, school to school.

 

"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."

 

A thousand miles away in Canada, where "that case" began, Sarah Levin says she is haunted, too. Her son, Daniel Levin, depressed and struggling with rage, hanged himself on Yom Kippur, 1993. He was 16.

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Alleged Cult Leader

Several months earlier, Daniel Levin's parents say, the teenager told them that Bryks had sexually molested him when he was a small child in the rabbi's Winnipeg, Manitoba, congregation. They say Daniel reported the abuse to police in Toronto, where they lived at the time. Toronto police said confidentiality rules prevented them from confirming or denying that.

 

"This man is toxic," Sarah Levin said. "He shouldn't be around children. He should be in jail."

 

Levin's claim is the starkest of several such complaints that have followed Bryks from Canada to Queens. Another woman, a former member of Bryks' congregation in Winnipeg, recently told Newsday that her daughter has been in psychiatric therapy for the past 10 years since she first alleged that Bryks repeatedly removed her underpants and molested her. The girl, then 12, said the alleged abuse occurred when she was between four and six years old.

 

"We always teach our kids to be wary of strangers," the woman said. "It's almost never a stranger. It's almost always someone who you know."

 

The woman said she reported the allegations to Winnipeg police, but decided not to pursue the matter to spare her daughter further emotional trauma.

 

No criminal charges were ever brought against Bryks, and he has denied the allegations over and over. But the complaints against Bryks have hobbled his career, blocking his hiring by at least one congregation and forcing his ouster from at least one other. And the claims continue to concern some local rabbis.

 

Members of the Rabbinical Council of America have said privately they would like to review Bryks' membership in the group, which represents about 1,100 Orthodox rabbis.

 

And there have been efforts to have Bryks removed from the Queens Va'ad Harabonim, a council of rabbis that makes important decisions in the borough. 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.

 

Rabbi Manny Behar, executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council, said he hopes the allegations against Bryks are resolved, one way or another.

 

"A person shouldn't have something like this hanging over his head," Behar said. "If it's true, it should be verified true and then he probably shouldn't be teaching in a school. If it's not true, he deserves to have his good name restored and go on with his life."

 

Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov said he and Bryks co-founded Bryks' current school, Yeshiva Berachel David, on 78th Road in Kew Gardens Hills. "He's a great individual," said Nisanov, who said he had known Bryks for 13 years. "All the allegations are baseless, useless, never proven."

 

The school has about 15, students, mostly Bukharian Sephardic Jews from the former Soviet Union. Nisanov said no one there has complained about Bryks. "We are not quiet people," he said. "They would kill him, in the literal sense, if anything like that happened."

The complaints against Bryks, 49, come from Winnipeg, where he ran a Jewish day school and a congregation that flourished under his leadership. starting in 1978.

 

But by the late 1980s, the congregation had started a review of alleged improprieties by Bryks. Winnipeg child welfare authorities, conducting their own investigation, found in March 1988 that there was nothing to support criminal or even administrative charges against Bryks.

 

But the authorities concluded that some of Bryks' interactions with female students -- tickling, kissing, hugging and having students sit on his lap -- "were neither appropriate nor professional behavior," according to their report. Bryks at the time described his behavior as warm and caring, but not inappropriate, according to an article in the Winnipeg Free Press.

 

Bryks was allowed to keep his job in the fractured congregation -- several board members had quit -- but he left Winnipeg two years later and eventually made his way to Torah Academy, a yeshiva in Kew Gardens.

 

While board members at the Queens high school found him a good administrator, they removed him following a 1994 Canadian Broadcasting Company news report.

 

In addition to the Levins, it quoted a former student and two couples who said their children were victimized. Except for the Levins, their identities were obscured, but they all told basically the same story -- that Bryks had fondled students in his private office.

 

Manitoba authorities reopened their investigation and announced in 1995 that they would not bring charges. Bryks then sued the Canadian Broadcasting Co., as well as Cable News Network, which rebroadcast the CBC documentary. The cases were thrown out on technical grounds.

 

Bryks appears incredulous that allegations keep resurfacing after so many years, saying that he has devoted his life to helping others.

 

"It's the type of allegation that implies you're guilty by accusation," said Bryks. "It pains me that I am lumped together with people who are guilty when I know I am totally innocent."

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Dogged By Allegations, Rabbi Quits - Rabbi Maintains Denial Of Any Wrongdoing

By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer

Newsday - May 28, 2003

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.

"He wanted to make very clear that his resignation should not be seen as an admission of guilt," said Rabbi Hershel Billet, outgoing president of the rabbinical council.

 

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.

 

Bryks' resignation from the council came as the 1,100-member organization, meeting in Rye, was considering a resolution on sexual abuse.

 

The resolution, which was adopted last night, urged Orthodox Jews to report allegations of sexual abuse to police as well as to establish systems for sexual abuse prevention and education.

 

"We're fully committed to it," said Rabbi Kenneth Auman of Young Israel of Flatbush congregation in Brooklyn. Auman was installed Wednesday night as the organization's new president.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Rabbi quits under cloud - Dogged by sex-abuse allegations

By TAMMY MARLOWE, STAFF REPORTER

The Winnipeg Sun - Friday, May 30, 2003

A New York rabbi, who's been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against at least one Winnipeg child for more than 15 years, has resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America.

 

Council officials confirmed Rabbi Ephraim Bryks resigned his membership from the prestigious Orthodox Rabbi association earlier in the week, according to a report on Newsday's Internet site.

 

The report said the council planned to remove Bryks due to long-standing allegations of sexual abuse against children in Winnipeg dating back to the 1980s.

 

SON COMMITTED SUICIDE

"Perhaps, finally, people are recognizing him for who he is," said Toronto journalist Martin Levin, whose 16-year-old son, Daniel, committed suicide on Yom Kippur in 1993 -- just a few months after he told his parents he'd been molested by Rabbi Bryks as a child, back when the family still lived in Winnipeg.

 

"This man is toxic," the teen's mother, Sarah Levin, told Newsday.

 

"He shouldn't be around children. He should be in jail."

 

Another Winnipeg woman told Newsday her daughter had also been fondled by Bryks when the girl was five or six years old.

 

Bryks ran a popular Jewish day school and congregation in Winnipeg in the late 1970s, said the Newsday report. About a decade later, members investigated allegations Bryks was interacting inappropriately with some females in the group -- allegedly tickling, kissing, hugging and having them sit in his lap.

 

Bryks left Winnipeg a couple of years later and moved to Queens, N.Y., where he has worked as a rabbi ever since.

 

Manitoba law enforcement officials looked into the Bryks case but concluded in 1995 there wasn't enough evidence to bring criminal charges.

 

Bryks himself has always denied the allegations.

 

"It's the type of allegation that implies you're guilty by accusation," Bryks told Newsday reporter Stephanie Saul. "It pains me that I am lumped together with people who are guilty when I know I am totally innocent."

 

Bryks was unavailable for comment when The Winnipeg Sun contacted his home yesterday.

 

"Oh please. You people are unreal," said a woman who answered the phone at Bryks' Richmond Hill, N.Y., home, before hanging up.

 

Levin said he tries not to corrupt his mind with thoughts of Bryks -- unless it means further exposing the rabbi's alleged wrongs.

 

"I really don't like to think about him. I will only do so when it has some effect on his career or his life," he said. "He's already done enough damage."

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

The author in this article uses the phrase "planned to remove" which is not accurate. The accurate phrase is the one used in the original Newsday article (which this article was based on): "believed to be considering ousting". -- Bryks webpage editor

 

Dear Vicki,

 

This report is not correct. Rabbi Bryks was not about to be removed from the RCA.There was a call by some members to bring his case to our disciplinary committee. However ,Rabbi Bryks was very clear in stating that he maintains his innocence.His resignation should not be seen as an admission of guilt.Rather , since he was leaving Jewish Education with the closing of his school, he no longer saw a necessity to belong to a professional Rabbinic Organization. He ,therefore was resigning from the RCA. I think that it is very important to maintain integrity in pursuit of your goals. The Newsday report is more in line with the truth. I do not think that the Winnipeg article should be disseminated.

 

Respectfully yours

 

Heshie Billet

------------------------------------------ 

Rabbi Resigns Amid Sex Abuse Allegations (see note above)

Queens Courier - May 28, 2003

A rabbi from Kew Gardens Hills has resigned from the rabbinical organization that was reportedly on the brink of casting him out because of long-standing sexual abuse allegations.

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, who was first accused of abusing a Canadian boy in the 1980's, resigned last week as a member of the Rabbinical Council of America. He also agreed to leave Jewish teaching. Bryks co-founded the Yeshiva Berachel David in Kew Gardens Hills where he is presently an administrator.

 

"He wanted to make it very clear that his resignation should not be seen as an admission of guilt," Rabbi Hershel Billet, council president, told Newsday.

 

Bryks, 49, still denies allegations regarding Daniel Levin, a 16-year-old Canadian boy whom he is accused of abusing as a small child. Daniel was a congregant at the Winnipeg, Manitoba, synagogue where Bryks was rabbi and ran a Jewish day school beginning in 1978. The boy, who had been struggling with depression, committed suicide on Yom Kippur in 1993. Months earlier he had told his parents about being sexually molested by the rabbi.

 

Accusations by the Levin family are only some of several involving other children that have haunted Bryks since he left Winnipeg for the Torah Academy, a Kew Gardens yeshiva. The academy–a high school where he was administrator–fired him in 1994 after hearing a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news report that quoted a former student and two families who said their children had also been abused. Bryks would later sue CBC for the report, as well as Cable News Network, which ran the CBC report, but the cases were dismissed on technicalities.

 

After an extensive investigation, Manitoba authorities announced in 1995 that they would not prosecute Bryks. The child welfare authorities in Winnipeg did their own investigation at that time and found that there was no significant evidence.

 

No criminal charges have ever been filed against Bryks, who plans to continue life as a private citizen. But accusations made his career an arduous one, preventing his hiring by one congregation and drawing concern from colleagues. The Queens Va'ad Harabonim, an important council of Queens rabbis, has talked of removing him.

 

"A person shouldn't have something like this hanging over his head," Manny Behar, executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council, told Newsday."If it's true, it should be verified true and then he probably shouldn't be teaching in a school. If it's not true, he deserves to have his good name restored."

 

Bryks was not reachable for comment by press time.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

   

The author in this article uses the phrase "on the brink of casting him " which is not accurate. The accurate phrase is the one used in the original Newsday article (which this article was based on): "believed to be considering ousting". -- Bryks webpage editor

-----------------------------------------------

Orthodox Rabbis To Report Abuse (see note above)

Centrist group tells members to inform police of suspicions of misconduct; controversial member resigns.

Debra Nussbaum Cohen - Staff Writer

The Jewish Week - June 6, 2003

Orthodox rabbis are pledging to take action in confronting the reality of sexual abuse in their midst.

 

The nation's main association of centrist Orthodox clergy, the 1,200-member Rabbinical Council of America, has passed a strongly worded resolution committing the organization and its members to report acts or suspicions of child abuse to the police — a watershed break with longstanding practice in the Torah-observant community of protecting errant rabbis rather than reporting them to civil authorities.

 

At the same time, the fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel of America is fighting behind the scenes in Albany to defeat a bill that would require clergy and religious institutions in New York to review old files and report past allegations against a religious leader.

 

The centrist Orthodox rabbis' group will be reconsidering "the role and function" of its Ethics Committee, which has never before dealt with issues related to sexual misconduct. It will adopt policies and procedures for reprimanding, censuring, suspending and revoking memberships of those found guilty of such acts.

 

Their resolution was unanimously approved by nearly 300 attendees at the group's annual convention, held May 27-29 at the Rye Town Hilton, after less than an hour of discussion.

 

"A whole confluence of events inspired us to take a step back and re-evaluate our leadership and responsibility in this area," said Rabbi Mark Dratch, a vice president of the RCA and author of the resolution.

 

"As rabbis our job is to be the servants of the community. Their welfare and well-being, not only spiritually but physically, is our prime concern," he said. "Otherwise we have no right being rabbis."

 

He is heading the committee that will re-draft an ethics policy by the organization's next annual meeting. He hopes to involve mental health professionals and survivors of clergy sexual misconduct in the deliberations, he said.

 

Events pushing this to the top of the RCA's agenda at its conference include the fact that rabbinic sexual misconduct in all of Judaism's major denominations has lately been much in the news, and has been plaguing the RCA's sister organization, the synagogue body the Orthodox Union, with the conviction of long-time youth leader Rabbi Baruch Lanner.

 

What's more, one of the RCA's members has been facing such allegations. Rabbi Ephraim Bryks has for the last few years run Yeshiva Berachel David, a small Orthodox high school in the Kew Gardens Hills section of Queens. Allegations of child molestation have followed him for years, going back to his leadership of a yeshiva and a congregation in Winnipeg, Canada, two decades ago. Canadian civil authorities investigated charges there and found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing.

 

Rabbi Bryks has repeatedly denied the allegations, but because they have continued to circulate, RCA sources say, he is leaving the Queens yeshiva and at the conference, he resigned his RCA membership.

 

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."

 

There are no charges or allegations outstanding against any other member of the RCA, Rabbi Dratch said.

 

Sexual impropriety and related issues were the convention's focus. Leading rabbis from Chicago and Los Angeles presented case studies of how the Orthodox rabbis in their communities have handled abuse issues. Other sessions addressed rabbinic stress, rabbis and the media, and rabbis and legal issues as they relate to pastoral counseling, said Rabbi Basil Herring, the RCA's incoming executive vice president. He succeeds Rabbi Steven Dworken, the popular professional who died suddenly earlier this year and was memorialized at a tribute dinner at the convention.

 

Confronting sexual misconduct and the weave of related issues "is part of an ongoing maturation process for the community in general to have the courage and determination to act aggressively against problems which have always been with us," said Rabbi Dratch.

 

"A lot of factors are forcing us to deal with it, to assert leadership, and not just to look for cover. We need to do what is necessary for the welfare of the community and the integrity of the Torah."

 

One of the central elements of the "Resolution Regarding Members Accused of Improprieties" is the exploration of why reporting rabbis suspected of child abuse does not constitute mesirah, which can be translated as one Jew "informing" on another. The principle has long shaped a culture of suspicion toward civil authorities in much of the Orthodox world.

 

Mesirah is also one of the reasons supplied by Agudath Israel for its opposition to a bill that has passed the state Senate and is currently working its way through the Assembly. The bill would add clergy to other categories of professionals, like educators and health care workers, who are required to report suspected child abuse. A similar bill was killed last year.

 

The law, if passed, would also require clergy and religious institutions to review records from the preceding 20 years and turn over old allegations to civil authorities.

 

This would be an "unconstitutional" law, said David Zwiebel, the Agudah's executive vice president for government and public affairs. The group is working behind the scenes in Albany to defeat it.

 

"It is a sensitive issue now especially with some of the attention that's been focused on allegations within our own community," he said. "The last thing we want to be seen as is obstructing whatever legitimate inquiries may be made among our own rabbinate.

 

"At the same time," said Zwiebel, "it would be unfortunate if the stories that have made their way into the papers and TV programs were to cause the kind of overreaction that this represents by perpetuating the notion that clergy, of all people, are more suspect than any other profession or group in society."

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Clarification to letter in Jewish Post and News Winnipeg:

 

The letter indicates: that the head (now former head) of the RCA has indicated that Bryks has left both the Rabbanute and Jewish chinuch.

 

More accurately, according to the Jewish Week, Rabbi Heshie Billet, immediate past president of the RCA, said 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.  -- Name withheld upon request

 

**********************************************************************************

LETTERS

Story about 'eruv' should have mentioned Bryks' past

The Jewish Post & News (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) - Wednesday, October 29, 2003 - page 5

 

It's unfortunate that your article ("Hydro Towers, connecting hydro lines a kosher 'eruv', expert tells Winnipeg 'Eruv Committee', October 15 Jewish Post & News) represents Rabbi Ephraim Bryks as a halachic authority/Orthodox rabbi without any qualification. I believe it is insulting to his victims, particularly as this is the 10th anniversary of the death of one of his victims, Daniel Levin. It was the continuing silence of the Winnipeg Jewish community and its leadership which created the environment that kept victims fearful and silent and led to Daniel's needless death at age 17.

 

Please note:

1) that recently Bryks publicly resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) under a public cloud.

 

2) that the head (now former head) of the RCA has indicated that Bryks has left both the Rabbanute and Jewish chinuch.

 

See articles at following website:

1) Main Website: http://www.theawarenesscenter.org

2) List of cases (Bryks is #4 on list, his father-in-law is #2)

3) Ephraim Bryks information

-- ANONYMOUS --

 

**********************************************************************************

Community news

The Jewish Post and News (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) – page 13 

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

 

Hydro towers, connecting hydro lines a kosher `eruv', expert tells Winnipeg `Eruv Committee' - Council of Rabbis calls for community-wide acceptance of symbolic enclosure allowing observant to carry outside homes on Shabbat

 

A rabbi cited as an internationally-respected expert has reviewed and reconfirmed the kashrut of the city-wide "eruv" he set up for Winnipeg nearly two decades ago.

 

Rabbi Gavriel Zinner of Brooklyn, New York visited here last August and "spent an entire day reviewing the eruv that he had set up in 1984," the Winnipeg Council of Rabbis (WCOR) said in a statement e-mailed to The Jewish Post & News October 7.

 

Zinner, author of a "30-volume halachic encyclopedia, Nitei Gavriel," examined Winnipeg's eruv, a symbolic enclosure that allows Shabbat-observant Jews to perform certain physical tasks outside their homes on the Sabbath.

 

An "eruv committee" including Michael Eskin, Eli Boroditsky and others has been monitoring the eruv, checking to see that it remains intact, Rabbi Ari Enkin, an Orthodox rabbi, member of WCOR and Rady Jewish Community Centre staff member, said last week. The committee extended the invitation to

 

Zinner to re-examine this city's eruv, which consists of hydro towers encircling Winnipeg and the hydro lines between them.

 

"He reviewed it and said it was kosher," Rabbi Henry Balser, chair of WCOR, said in an interview October 7.

 

WCOR seeks to get a "community-wide hechsher going," in terms of Shabbat-observant Winnipeg Jews' acceptance of the eruv, Balser added.

 

In their statement, Balser and fellow WCOR rabbis Enkin, Alan Green and Neal Rose quoted a passage from the writings of the 18th-century rabbi and scholar, Chatam Sofer, saying" "All rabbis and community leaders must do their utmost to establish an eruv in their community."

 

In Jewish religious tradition, an eruv can make even a large public area into a "private domain", Balser explained. It allows Jews to carry and move objects outside their homes on Shabbat just as they're allowed to do in their own homes.

 

"For women with children in baby carriages, it would allow them out."

 

The issue first arose here in the mid-1980s when two North End Orthodox rabbis and Zinner, a "world-renowed halachic authority", declared the hydro towers and their hydro lines an eruv.

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, then spiritual leader of the South End Herzlia Synagogue, rejected the idea, as did dome other Orthodox rabbis. Contacted last week, Joseph ("Yossi") Cohen, Herzlia's current president, said he disputes Zinner's claim that the hydro towers and lines are a legal eruv.

 

"I don't personally accept the eruv in Winnipeg," Cohen said, adding that Rabbi Avrom Altein, executive director of the Lubavitch Centre, gave a workshop several weeks ago, challenging Zinner's arguments.

 

"The existing eruv doesn't even surround the city," Cohen claimed, adding that that's one of the requirements of such an "enclosure".

 

Cohen added that Herzlia officials have shared their views and Altein's about the eruv with the 200-family Herzlia congregation, the biggest Orthodox one in the city. But they're not interested in stirring up opposition to the eruv.

 

"People have to trust their rabbis. If a rabbi believes it's kosher, they use the eruv."

 

Cohen knows of local Orthodox Jews that accept Winnipeg's eruv, but he doesn't. "My wife can't come to shule on Shabbat because she can't push a stroller. I've got small kids at home, and I can't get them to shule. But it's something we've lived with for many years."

Altein said he's studied and photographed Winnipeg's eruv extensively, and disputes its kashrut for a variety of reasons grounded in Jewish religious tradition.

 

He echoed Cohen, however, in emphasizing he's not out to create conflict in the community over the issue.

 

"The question of the eruv is not of any concern to anybody who doesn't keep Shabbas literally," Altein added. "To the Conservative movement, I don't think it's of high importance."

 

Enkin insisted, however, that the Winnipeg eruv completely encircles the city.

 

Telephone poles with telephone wires strung between them and circling a city are "generally the mode" for eruvin (plural of "eruv") in North American Jewish communities, Enkin added. But Zinner was able to declare the Winnipeg hydro towers and lines an eruv because in contrast to many other cities, Winnipeg hasn't buried its hydro lines.

 

"It's like one huge house with a lot of doors. That's what the eruv turns the city into."

 __________________________________________________________________________________

 

Rabbi's visit canceled amid abuse allegations - The Jewish community in D.M. received e-mails accusing the man of a history of child abuse.

By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE

Des Moines Register - November 14, 2003

 

(** Please note that there are some misquotes in this article. The quote "Pedophilia has no religion," is a statement I quoted from Na'ama Yehuda, one of The Awareness Center's advisory board members.)

 

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks - Accused of clergy sexual abuse and cult like practices

A Des Moines orthodox synagogue has canceled the appearance of a prominent New York rabbi scheduled to speak this weekend, after the Des Moines Jewish community was barraged with e-mails suggesting the guest speaker had a history of child abuse.

 

Rabbi Ari Sytner of Beth El Jacob Synagogue had invited Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Richmond Hill, N.Y., to speak at an event today. Bryks had spoken twice before in Des Moines at Sytner's invitation.

Members of a victims advocacy network found the announcement on DesMoinesRegister.com and sent messages to the newspaper and members of the Iowa Jewish community, said a member of that network.

Bryks would not speak to a Register reporter Thursday, but in a May article in a New York newspaper denied the allegations, which are more than 20 years old. Despite the fact that he's never been charged with child abuse, Bryks said in the article that the allegations are like a ghost trailing him from city to city, school to school. And to Des Moines.

 

"Rabbi and Mrs. Bryks have visited our community twice before in the last few years (before we knew of the allegations), and they were welcomed, loved and respected by all that met them," Sytner said Wednesday in a written statement.

 

"Nonetheless, I still have absolutely no basis for determining this man's guilt or innocence, and unfortunately with the program scheduled for this weekend, time is not on our side to further investigate. As a result, I have decided to cancel Rabbi Bryks' trip to Des Moines until we can further clarify the matter."

 

When approached about the e-mail messages earlier this week, Sytner said he believed it was a case of mistaken identity, noting that Ephraim Bryks is a common Jewish name. After Sytner received forwarded e-mails from "all over the country," he decided to cancel Bryks' trip.

 

One of the early e-mails came from the executive director and founder of The Awareness Center, an international organization dedicated to advocacy and education on sexual abuse in Jewish communities. Founder Victoria Polin said Bryks is one of about 100 alleged abusers whose names are posted on the center's Web site.

 

"Pedophilia has no religion," Polin said. "Some Jewish communities are 30 years behind the times in terms of addressing sexual abuse. In some Orthodox communities, they do not watch TV or read the newspapers. All they know is what the rabbi tells them. Someone has to speak out because nobody listens to the victims."

 

The allegations stem from a period in the late 1980s when Bryks was the leader at a Winnipeg, Canada, Jewish day school and congregation, according to The Jewish Tribune, a publication of B'nai Brith Canada.

 

According to various media reports, Bryks was accused of abusing five Winnipeg students, including a 17-year-old boy who committed suicide in 1994 after talking about the alleged abuse with his parents and police.

 

A 1988 report by the government agency, Winnipeg South Child and Family Services on a 14-year-old girl's allegations, said there was no evidence to support a finding of criminal wrongdoing, but said Bryks' interaction with female students was inappropriate. A year later, parents of a young boy took a sex abuse complaint to Winnipeg police. The allegations were investigated, but there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges, according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary.

 

Bryks left Canada in 1990, relocating in New York, where the allegations blocked his hiring by at least one congregation and forced his ouster from at least one other, according to the New York newspaper.

 

Attempts have been made to remove Bryks from the Queens, N.Y., Va'ad Harabonim, a council of rabbis that makes important decisions in the borough.

 

Earlier this year, Bryks resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America under criticism. In June, the 1,200-member Rabbinical Council voted to report acts or suspicions of child abuse to the police, a break from a longstanding practice of protecting errant rabbis rather than reporting them to civil authorities, according to reports in The Jewish Week newspaper.

  

__________________________________________________________________________________

Breaking News Brief

Accused rabbi dropped

JTA - November 17, 2003

Please note: The statement "No one lodged any formal charges" is inaccurate.  

 

A rabbi shadowed by charges of child sex abuse was dropped from a speaking engagement. Beth El Jacob Synagogue in Des Moines canceled a talk last week by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Richmond Hill, N.Y., after members of the Iowa Jewish community received e-mails detailing the allegations. Rabbi Ari Sytner, who heads the Orthodox congregation, said the synagogue did not know about the charges but intended to look into them. Bryks first said in an interview that he couldn't care less about the reversal, but he later wrote to JTA maintaining his innocence. "Those who have been falsely accused are also victims," he said. In the 1980s, several former students of the now-defunct Winnipeg Torah Academy accused Bryks of fondling them in his office. No one lodged any formal charges, and while local child welfare officials found evidence of inappropriate behavior with children, they found no proof of criminal wrongdoing.

 

Earlier this year the Rabbinical Council of American accepted Bryks' resignation, which means he cannot use the group's job placement services. "We felt that, on the one hand, everyone has the presumption of innocence, but on the other hand, we recognize that one should not wait until things are proven in a court of law in order to remove potentially abusive situations," the RCA's executive vice president, Rabbi Basil Herring, said.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Iowa Synagogue Nixes Queens Rabbi's Speech

Jewish Week - November 19, 2003

(JTA) A Queens rabbi shadowed by charges of child sex abuse was dropped from a speaking engagement in Iowa. Beth El Jacob Synagogue in Des Moines canceled a talk last week by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks of Richmond Hill after members of the Iowa Jewish community received e-mails detailing the allegations.

 

Rabbi Bryks first said in an interview that he couldn't care less about the reversal, but he later wrote to JTA maintaining his innocence. In the 1980s, several former students of the now-defunct Winnipeg Torah Academy in Canada accused Bryks of fondling them, but none lodged formal charges.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Ragsdale: More faith communities struggle with alleged child sexual abuse

By Shirley Ragsdale - Register Religion Editor

Des Moines Register - November 22, 2003

American Jews have joined Catholics and United Methodists on the list of U.S. denominations that are wrestling with how to deal with allegations of child sexual abuse.

This year, the Rabbinical Council of America joined the other three Jewish denominations in voting to report allegations of child abuse to the police.

 

Prompted in part by the case of a rabbi, whose appearance in Des Moines was cancelled earlier this month, the rabbinical council reversed a long-standing Orthodox practice of protecting accused rabbis or trying to take care of scandal internally. The organization's ethics policy is being rewritten with the help of mental health professionals and survivors of clergy sexual misconduct.

 

It's a huge step forward for a faith tradition with a history of persecution. That history undoubtedly contributed to an ancient Jewish prohibition called a Mesirah, a mandate that no Jew should betray another Jew to civil authorities.

 

The urge to stifle scandal and preserve the status quo has been a common reaction for congregations that are confronted by allegations of sexual abuse of children by clergy. But it's a bad choice that ill-serves everyone involved - the victims, the accused, the congregation and the community.

 

Resorting to secrecy got the Boston Catholic Archdiocese in trouble, because when 50 years of accumulated accusations of sexual misconduct poured out over six months, it exaggerated the scope of the problem.

 

A similar reaction by a Winnipeg, Canada, Jewish congregation to allegations of child sexual abuse has permanently scarred the synagogue, the victims, their families and the alleged abuser.

 

Beth El Jacob Synagogue on Nov. 13 cancelled the appearance of New York Rabbi Ephraim Bryks because of an e-mail campaign to alert Iowans that Bryks was accused of molesting children nearly 20 years ago when he was the leader of a Canadian synagogue and Jewish day school.

 

Like the Boston Catholic cases, the charges are decades old.

 

Like the Catholic cases, synagogue leaders did their best to hush things up.

 

Instead of immediately asking police or child and family services to investigate, they held an internal "investigation." A number of meetings were held which reportedly disintegrated into yelling matches between the families of the victims and the rabbi's supporters.

 

Winnipeg social services agencies didn't get the case until later, after the congregation had taken sides and possibly victims had been intimidated. No criminal charges were filed. But investigators said Bryks' actions were inappropriate and unprofessional.

 

Bryks has always denied he did anything wrong. He left Canada in 1990 and settled in New York where he worked as a principal and a teacher. This year he resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America after some members sought his ouster.

 

Victoria Polin, founder, and Na'ama Yehuda, advisory board member of The Awareness Center, an international organization dedicated to addressing sexual abuse in Jewish communities, have said that Jews carry an extra burden when it comes to going public with a sex scandal.

 

"Over the years there have been many reasons why the Jewish community kept silent about sexual crimes committed by individuals in our community," Polin wrote on her Web site www.theawarenesscenter.org. "There is a large number of hate groups that would love to promote their propaganda on their Web pages and in publications by posting information about Jews who molest. Their eagerness is a reminder that anti-Semitism is alive and thriving."

 

Additionally, some fervently Orthodox congregations feel bound by the Mesirah, that no Jew should betray another Jew to civil authorities.

 

The prohibition arose because Jews have lived under autocratic governments and biased judicial systems for much of their history. Informing could lead to dangerous persecution of the entire Jewish community.

 

Congregations relied on the judgment of special Jewish courts to settle disputes and deal out punishment. While those courts still exist, their power is limited, according to Rabbi David Jay Kaufman of Temple B'nai Jeshurun in Des Moines.

 

"These special courts operated with authorities from civil authorities," Kaufman said. "They dealt with Jewish law, which many times was more stringent than secular law. It was useful for keeping community social structures intact."

 

While the local Jewish community is still mindful of anti-Semitism and avoiding scandal, it would be unconscionable for anyone in the Jewish faith tradition to hesitate to report a child abuse situation today, Kaufman said.

 

"In some states, clergy are required to report suspicions of child abuse," Kaufman said. "As far as I'm concerned, it is a good thing. My primary concern is for the children. The people who do this kind of thing usually don't have just one victim, so if you don't do something to stop them, you are endangering other children. I can't think of a reason that would morally or ethically make it allowable not to report."

 

The work of Jewish leaders who share Kaufman's attitude toward reporting child abuse and the Orthodox community's decision to embrace a reporting policy show an "ongoing maturation process for the community in general to have the courage and determination to act aggressively against problems which have always been with us," said Rabbi Mark Dratch, who authored the Rabbinical Council resolution.

 

"A lot of factors are forcing us to deal with (child abuse) to assert leadership and not just to look for cover," Dratch told The Jewish Week. "We need to do what is necessary for the welfare of the community and the integrity of the Torah."

__________________________________________________________________________________

Call to Action: In Honor of the Memory of Daniel Levin

Asking Herzlia - Adas Yeshurun Synagogue to have the plaque removed honoring Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

 

Contact Information:  

Rabbi Tzvi Muller at Herzlia - Adas Yeshurun Synagogue

620 Brock St., Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3N 0Z4

Phone: (204) 489-6262    Fax: (204) 489-5899

email: herzlia2000@yahoo.ca 

 

The Awareness Center - October 10, 2004

 

This Yom Kippur marked the 11th anniversary of the suicide of Daniel Levin an alleged victim of Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks (http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/bryks_ephraim.html). It is a difficult time in particular for his family and friends as Daniel's alleged abuser has never been brought to real justice (if such a thing is even possible at this point) and continues to thrive and work with women and children, not in some small Jewish community but in the New York Orthodox Jewish community.

 

The Winnipeg Jewish community and Bryks' former Orthodox Union affiliated synagogue, Herzlia Adas Yeshurun (the site of Daniel's abuse), continue to refuse any acknowledgment or responsibility. No apology, no compassion. A plaque honoring Rabbi Ephraim Boruch Bryks remains on the synagogue's "Tree of Life." All Daniel has is a tombstone in a cemetery.

 

The Awareness Center Has A Call to Action asking everyone to contact Herzlia Adas Yeshurun and ask them to remove the plaque, and perhaps replace it with a plaque honoring the memory of Daniel Levin (see contact information above). For more information regarding the Bryks case.

 

Sincerely,

 

Vicki Polin, MA, ATR, LCPC

Executive Director - The Awareness Center

 

__________________________________________________________________________________

Letter from Mordechai Bobrowsky to Rabbi Muller

October 16, 2004

 

Dear Rabbi Muller,

 

I am a former friend and schoolmate of Daniel Levin, and as such it was quite the rude awakening to read about your synagogue's decision to honor Ephraim Bryks, Daniel's alleged abuser, with a plaque on your Tree of Life.

 

Although the allegations have never been proven in a court of law, the awful truth is that a young teenager committed suicide and his alleged abuser has never been taken to task by his own (former) community. Certainly not just anybody gets on your Tree of Life. Were you really that deep into your list that the next reasonable person you had to award a plaque to was a man who has faced numerous sexual abuse claims and who has been running from those claims ever since (did you know that just last year he resigned [in the face of being removed] from the Rabbinical Council of America)?

 

The history of our attitude towards abuse is shameful enough. Surely there are more constructive things to be done for your congregation and the Jewish community at large. Surely Daniel's family and friends deserve even the slightest consideration for their tremendous loss.

 

What are your synagogue's plans for honoring Daniel's memory?

 

Yours truly,

Mordechai Bobrowsky

 

__________________________________________________________________________________

Letter from Zev Zlotnick, LL.B., MBA, BAS

October 18, 2004

 

Dear Rabbi Muller.

 

As a former classmate and friend of Daniel Levin for many years I was appalled to hear that your congregation has erected a plaque honouring the perpetrator of the abominable acts that arguably led to Daniel's horrific suicide 11 years ago, namely Ephraim Bryks. Although the myopic view of our Jewish community prefers not to bring such perpetrators to justice through the secular legal system, and as a result, they often remain within the confines of our own communal and educational environment, there is absolutely no reason for justifying their actions by awarding these individuals honourary plaques on Trees of "Life", while the physical memory of their victims dwell in graves of death.

 

For the sake of Dan and his bereaving family and friends, remove the plaque, and replace it with one commemorating the person we all grew to love and truly appreciate for his warm, kind and impartial attitude towards everyone - Dan Levin.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Zev Zlotnick, LL.B., M.B.A., B.A.S.

 

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WARNING: Rabbi Ephraim Bryks and Marriage Counseling

By Rabbi Yosef Blau

Unorthodox Jew Blog - October 9, 2007

 

Ephrayim Bryks has become a rabbinic marriage counselor. The term marriage counselor or life coach can be used by anyone. He is not the only "rabbi" suspected of sexual abuse using one of these titles to access vulnerable individuals or couples both here and in Israel. Consulting actual professionals is expensive and unless the community publicly warns against going to these charlatans (often worse) many innocents will continue to be hurt.

 

Yosef Blau

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9th Annual Shabbaton Getaway!

Hudson Valley Resort

June 22-24, 2007

http://www.forums.boojle.com/showthread.php?p=58414

 

You and your family and friends are cordially invited to our 9th Annual Weekend Retreat!!

This wonderful weekend will be filled with inspiration,Torah education, rejuvenation, wonderful speakers, excellent food, and many fun & great activities for everyone!!

 

Our special weekend together will include separate pool & fitness hours for men & women, Day Camp services for children, inspirational lectures & discussions, Saturday Night Live with music & comedy, Sunday afternoon BBQ, dance class for mothers & daughters, and much, much more!!!

 

Guest Speaker at the Shabbaton, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks!

Guest Speaker at the Shabbaton, Rabbi Paysach Krohn!

 

Children's Day Camp Services under the leadership of Yair Yakubov!

 

Glatt Kosher catering by Meal Mart!

Don't delay,

 

REGISTER TODAY!

 

$ Shabbaton Pricelist $

 

$650 per couple with 2 children

$600 per couple without children

$225 per additional room

$150 per single individual

$75 per each additional child (ages 3-16)

 

Children under 3 years old are complimentary!!

 

email: ahavatachim@hotmail.com

phone: (718) 591-9574

___________________________________________________________________________________

 
Rabbi Paysach Krohn, Rabbi Lipa Brenner and Alleged Sex Offender Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

The Awareness Center - November 12, 2007

 

The following article was written by Rabbi Paysach Krohn, and is about convicted sex offender, Rabbi (Lewis) Lipa Brenner. While reading the article remember that Rabbi Ephraim Bryks's wife is Rabbi Lipa Brenner's daughter; and Rabbi Paysach Krohn is married to Rabbi Ephraim Bryks sister.

It's a known fact that Rabbi Paysach Krohn has a long history of protecting those who allegedly, perpetrate crimes against children. An example of this is the fact that to this day he still helps his brother-in-law, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks get speaking engagements.

 

In the book "Around The Magid's Table", Rabbi Paysach Krohn portrays Rabbi Brenner as a righteous man even though he was being accused as being a child molester at the time. When Artscroll learned that Rabbi Brenner was barred from Yeshiva Torah Vodaas because of his sex crimes, they removed the story from later editions of the book. Back in the 1990's rumors circulated that Krohn new about the allegations when he published his book, yet decided to ignore them.

 

The original charges against Rabbi Brenner included, 14 counts of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.  Brenner agreed to plead guilty to one count of sodomy in the third degree, a Class E felony, in exchange for a sentence of five years' probation.

 

Prosecutors said Brenner had sexual contact with a youth he met in the bathroom of the synagogue they both attended. The molestation's allegedly took place over a three-year period that ended in 1995 when the victim was 15 years old.

 

On June 24, 2007, both Rabbi Paysach Krohn and Rabbi Ephraim Bryks presented at a Shabbaton (weekend retreat)

 

CALL TO ACTION:  Contact Rabbi Paysach Krohn and ask him to stop promoting alleged child molester, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. Remind him if another child is harmed that he could be held liable in a civil suit.

Rabbi PaysachKrohn, Certified Mohel

E-mail: pkrohn@brisquest.com 

Toll Free: 866-846-6900

NY: 718-846-6900

___________________________________________________________________________________

Around The Magid's Table

By Rabbi Paysach Krohn

Published by Art Scroll (1989, 1990, 1991, 1992)

718-921-9000

Children's Children.

Family Life, Page 97 - 101

 

Being a rav in a small town, far from any city with a large Jewish population, is often a lonely and thankless job. True, there is much to accomplish, but the challenges which need to be overcome on the way to building a day school, solidifying a minyan of shomrei Shabbos (Sabbath observers), or convincing people to uphold and maintain standards of kashrus and family purity always seem to be uphill struggles. More often than not, a rav in an area with a limited number of Jewish inhabitants gets the feeling that the Jews he is dealing with are simply not on the same wave length as he is.

 

One such rav was R' Lipa Brenner, who had been inspired to enter the rabbinate by his mentor in Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, R' Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz (1886-1948). After a few years of serving as a rabbi and principal in a small town in New Jersey, R' Lipa was becoming exasperated. The local baalei battim (laymen) were not cooperating with him in his endeavors, and R' Lipa's accomplishments seemed to dim with every passing year. Meanwhile to add to his dilemma, business opportunities beckoned from New York. Aside from the potential financial security that was so alluring, Lipa might finally have the opportunity to provide his children with the chinuch (education) that he felt was proper and essential.

 

In a quandary as to whether or not to leave the rabbinate, he decided to travel to Eretz Yisrael (Israel) and seek the advice of Vizhnitzer Rebbe, R' Chaim Mayer Hager (1898-1972). R' Lipa obtained his tickets and passport, and made the trip. However upon his arrival he was informed that the Rebbe was preparing to leave for Lugano, Switzerland, and would receive no more visitors before his departure. And so R' Lipa followed him to Switzerland.

 

In Lugano, R'Lipa made his way to where the Rebbe was staying. He waited his turn to see the Rebbe and, when he was finally ushered in, the Rebbe asked R'Lipa to sit beside him at his table. Seated across the table was another rav from Tel Avivi. After a few moments the rebbetzin came in with a glass of hot tea for her husband. Before she could even put the tea on the table, the Rebbe gently admonished her and said, :Please bring two more glasses of tea. We are three rabbanim here about to have a discussion."

 

R' Lipa was astounded. The Rebbe had referred to him as a rav, and talked of him as though he were a peer. R' Lipa trembled as he realized the significance of the title the Vizhnitzer Rebbe had inadvertently bestowed on him. But perhaps it wasn't inadvertent? Did the Rebbe know that he was thinking of leaving the rabbinate? R' Lipa never bothered to find out. Then and there he resolved his own conflict. He would retain his position as rav.

***

 

That winder, back in New Jersey, R' Lipa received a call from the head of a nearby children's s foster home. This woman told him that five Jewish boys had been placed in her care. "School registration is coming up soon, and I feel that the boys should be given some background in Jewish culture," she said. "I am Jewish, although not religious, " she continued, somewhat apologetically, " and I just can't see sending these five children to a regular public school." She asked R' Lipa if he could find places for the boys in his day school. At least in a Jewish environment they would get to know something about their heritage." She went on to explain that the foster home could not pay any tuition because its budget covered only room and board. The children in the home were supposed to attend public school, which was free. As if to reinforce her point, she then added, "And don't think for a moment that any of these children's parents left us any money for parochial schools!"

R' Lipa realized that this was an opportunity to perform spiritual hatzalas nefasho (saving of lives). Tuition at the time was one thousand dollars per child, but maybe if he spoke to the members of the Board of Directors they would be willing to foot the bill for these children. He tried, but had no luck. As a matter of fact, the Board members were totally opposed to his idea. "Our school is not a charity organization," on of them said. "If neither the parents of the children nor the foster home will contribute at all towards their tuition, then we won't accept them. Finished."

 

The young rav was incensed. True, it wouldn't be easy for the school to absorb the cost of education additional boys, but it was the attitude of the Board members that enraged him. "They shouldn't be pushing away problems," he thought, "They should tackling them head on!"

 

R'Lipa thought about the situation for a day and then came back to the Board with his mind made up. "I won't allow these boys to fall by the wayside," he declared. "if the director of the foster home was considerate enough to contact us, it would be a chillul Hashem (disgrace of Hashem's Name) not to respond affirmatively to her suggestions. I will consider these children as my own and assume responsibility for paying their tuition." The Board members were stunned but silent, and the next day the five boys were enrolled in the town's Hebrew Day School

 

R'Lipa had no idea from where he would get the money. Already he was raising funds for the shul, the school, the mikveh and the chevra kaddisha. But he persisted in his search, all the while taking a special interest in these children.

 

One day he made an appointment with a wealthy woman who headed a prestigious store downtown. She hadn't been known for her charity in the past, but he felt that perhaps of the plight of these five boys would awaken within her a sense of sympathy. Miraculously it did, and by the time "R'Lipa walked out of her office he had with him a check for five thousand dollars -- the amount to necessary to cover the entire year's tuition bill for the boys.

 

****

The school year progressed as the boys advanced, each at his own pace. At year's end one of the five was reunited with his family, two remained in the day school, and two brothers, having made significant strides in their studies, were encouraged by R'Lipa and another teacher to enter fine yeshivos in New York.

 

The next year R'Lipa left New Jersey and eventually lost contact with the people there

 

****

 

More than two decades later, R' Lipa was visiting in the Matterdorf section of Jerusalem. It was Shabbos afternoon and dozens of children were playing in the streets. , which are cordoned off until nightfall. Suddenly a bearded young man came running over to R' Lipa, yelling, "Rebbe!!" R'Lipa turned around, but did not recognize anyone. "Rebbe,", the young man said, smiling, "you are R' Brenner, aren't you? You probably don't recognize me anymore. I went to your school back in New Jersey more than twenty years ago. come with me," the young man said warmly. "I want to introduce you to your grandchildren."

 

The young man took R' Lipa by the hand and brought him to where his wife was watching their children playing. (something in hebrew) -- Anyone who teaches Torah to a child of at his friend, it's as though he gave birth to him," said the young man, citing the Talmudic text (Sanhedrin 19b). "Thus, if I am your child, these are your grandchildren."

 

The young man was indeed one of the five from the foster home in New Jersey. R' Lipa had seen to it that he attend the Mirrer Yeshiva in New York, and from there the young man went on to become an outstanding talmid chacham. R'Lipa had all but forgotten him, but the young man had remembered him. The face of his mentor had been etched in the child's memory forever.

___________________________________________________________________________________

CALL TO ACTION: Rabbi Ephraim Bryks Lecture Series

February 27, 2008

 

The Awareness Center is asking that everyone contacts Kol Yaakov and demand they remove the lecture series they have provided by alleged sex offender, Rabbi Ephraim Bryks. Please let Rubin Kaylyakov, owner of the site know if anyone ends up getting harmed by Bryks after making their initial contact with him by listening to one of the tapes on his web page, he could be held liable in a civil suit -- especially after being warned about this allegedly dangerous man. 

WATCH NewsCast:  

http://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2007/11/rabbi-ephraim-bryks-unorthodox-conduct.html

Contact:

Kol Yakov.org

Rubin Kaylyakov

10820 62nd DR, Apt. 2B

Forest Hills, NY 11375

Phone: 9176624957

rubin23@gmail.com

http://kolyakov.org/contact.html

TorahAnytime.com

Rubin Kay

71-28A Main Street

Flushing, New York 11367

917-662-4957

rubin23@gmail.com

Computer Doctor

Attn. Torah Anytime

71-28a Main Street

Flushing, NY 11367

__________________________________________________________________________________

The story that continues to haunt our community: Rabbi Bryks to be subject matter of episode of new documentary series for vision TV  

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER RABBI HENRY BALSER GOES ON THE RECORD RE: HIS ROLE IN THIS SAGA- READ IT HERE
By Rhonda J. Spivak, B.A., L.L.B., 

Winnipeg Jewish Review - January 5, 2011

The case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks who has been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against children, but never charged with a crime will be the subject matter of part of an episode in a documentary series currently being produced by Apocryphal Productions for Vision Television.

According to the  Jewish Week, [New York] June 29, 2010, "Rabbi Bryks, who was investigated by police in Winnipeg, on suspicion of inappropriate contact with children at Winnipeg’s Torah Academy where he was principal, resigned from the Orthodox Union’s Rabbinical Council of America in 2003 without admitting any wrongdoing. Bryks, "reached a negotiated agreement to leave the Rabbinical Board of Queens in the fall of 2009," as indicated in the Jewish Week.

"Rabbi Bryks, as principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg was found in 1988 to have tickled and hugged some students, but denied more serious charges of sexual molestation, according to press reports. While the more serious charges were not substantiated by an investigation by Winnipeg social workers, the substantiated contact was deemed inappropriate and the Winnipeg Child and Family Services agency recommended that the school adopt guidelines against such behavior,"according th the Jewish Week.

The school closed in 1991, about a year after Rabbi Bryks left Winnipeg.

Allan Levine in  his recent book “Coming of Age,” on p.420, refers to "the agency issuing a report that concluded that Bryks' behavior of having children sit on his lap while he tickled them was "neither appropriate nor professional",  but not illegal." 

Tanya Fleet of Apocryphal Productions, who is researching visual material for the documentary series, told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that the series will consider “the issue of sexual abuse or allegations thereof pertaining to children in religious communities… The themes to be examined are why it is prevalent, why is it kept quiet, and what is now being done to try and stop potential abuse. We will talk to experts in the fields, activists, survivors and their families.”

According to Fleet, the series which is being produced by Christopher Sumpton and Robin Benger, will deal with these issues in the Catholic community, the Evangelical Christian community, as well as in Judaism and Islam.

The painful saga relating to Rabbi Bryks in Winnipeg will be part of an episode that will focus on orthodoxy in Judaism, and will also deal with the orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.

In 1993, after Rabbi Bryks moved to New York, a former student in Winnipeg accused him of having fondled him at the school when the student was 8, but prosecutors reportedly declined to file criminal charges, citing lack of corroboration. When the boy, Daniel Leven. at age 17, was asked to re-record a statement he had given earlier, he committed suicide. 

Martin Levin [Daniel’s father] has been interviewed for the upcoming documentary series.

Levin, currently lives in Toronto and is the book editor of the Globe and Mail.

Former Winnipegger Alan Mendelsohn is the producer of the episode of the series relating to the Jewish community. Mendelsohn has previously worked at the CBC as a producer at The Journal.

Herzlia Adas Yeshurun Synagogue in Winnipeg, where Rabbi Bryks served, took down the plaques in his honour on the Tree of Life in the lobby of the synagogue in September, 2010. Herzlia's actions, close to 17 years after  Levin's suicide, occurred less than two months after members of the Jewish community in Winnipeg had a full opportunity to read the article by Adam Dickter, Assistant Managing Editor of the Jewish Week (New York), June 29, 2010 , which was posted in the latter part of July, 2010 on this website and elsewhere.

In the email sent to Herzlia membership days before Yom Kippur this past year, Dr. Earl Hershfield, President of the Board of Herzlia wrote:

 “In response to repeated requests, and after much deliberation, the Board of Directors of Herzlia – Adas Yeshurun has decided to remove all plaques on the Tree of Life in the Shul lobby dedicated in honour of [Rabbi] Ephraim Bryks”[emphasis added].

He also wrote “As a Shul, we have a responsibility to provide moral and ethical leadership for our community.”

In the same email, he wrote “In accordance with a recent resolution taken by the Rabbinical Council of America, Herzlia – Adas Yeshurun condemns all forms of abuse in the strongest terms. Policies and procedures are being developed by your Board to direct future action. Reporting suspected abuse to the appropriate authorities does not violate the Torah’s prohibition of mesirah (turning a fellow Jew over to a non-Jewish authority) or arka’ot (adjudicating cases in a secular court). We are obligated by Jewish law to do so as the concern for saving a life and respecting the law of land are paramount.”

Levine in  his recent book “ Coming of Age,” on p.420 writes that “Daniel Levin alleged that Bryks molested him." He further wrote "According to Sarah Levin, [Daniel’s mother] Bryks had given Daniel candy to keep him quiet and told him that God would punish him if he ever told anyone what had transpired. This threat of retribution was echoed by other children who came forward.”

A previous documentary was made on the case of Rabbi Bryks by CBC Television and produced by Noah Erenberg, a member of our Jewish community and a graduate of the Joseph Wolinsky class of 1982. The documentary was hosted by the late Danielle Keefler and aired nationally in February 1994.

Levine’s book says on page 421, “Attempts by Rabby Bryks to sue CBC and CNN, which also broadcast the documentary, were discontinued for lack of funds.”
Noah Erenberg's name is not mentioned in Levine's book on pages 419-421.

The Winnipeg Jewish Review has spoken to Rabbi Henry Balser who is now living in Florida.
Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review “I almost broke into tears when I read [in the Winnipeg Jewish Review] that Herzlia Synagogue finally took down the plaques in honour of Rabbi Bryks.”

In his book, Levine writes on page 420 “Bryks was nearly hired to head a Jewish school in Montreal until parents there learned of the allegations in Winnipeg.”
Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that he was giving spiritual advice and comfort to a family who came to him, alleging their child had been molested by Rabbi Bryks.

Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that “the vice principal from the Montreal [school] contacted me on the advice of an orthodox Rabbi.”

Rabbi Balser said, “I relied not just on the word of the family that I spoke with. I also did some investigation of my own, and decided then that I was on solid ground in telling the Rabbi in Montreal that I would not  recommend Bryks.”

Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that he told the Montreal Rabbi this even though he feared potentially being sued by Bryks.

Balser also told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that he was thankful that Shaarey Zedek Synagogue backed him up and was willing to pay any related legal fees he may have had to incur in so doing.

The Winnipeg Jewish Review will report on further details of the upcoming documentary series to be aired on Vision Television in due course.

In his book on page 419, Levine writes that the "biggest controversy in the Herzlia's history-in fact, arguably the most controverisal matter in the annals of the Winnipeg Jewish community-involved Rabbi Bryk's..." [emphasis added].

In his book on page 420  Levine refers to the Winnipeg-produced CBC television documentary about Bryks as "controversial."

Below is the article by  Adam Dickter in the Jewish Week.

RABBI EPHRAIM BRYKS LEAVES RABINICAL BOARD OF QUEENS UNDER A CLOUD
By Adam Dickter, Assistant Managing Editor The Jewish Week (New York),June 29,2010
[Reprinted with Permission]  A Queens rabbi who has been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against children, but never charged with a crime, has reached a negotiated agreement to leave the Rabbinical Board of Queens in the fall, The Jewish Week has learned.

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, who was investigated by police in Winnipeg, Canada, on suspicion of inappropriate contact with children at a yeshiva where he was principal, resigned from the Orthodox Union’s Rabbinical Council of America in 2003 without admitting any wrongdoing. 

Sources told The Jewish Week that the Queens board, known as the Vaad Harabonim, had long sought to have Rabbi Bryks removed as allegations against him persisted but was advised by lawyers that doing so was complicated because there has been no formal legal or halachic proceeding against him. Rabbi Bryks has been a member of the Vaad since the early ‘90s.  Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, co-president of the Vaad, would tell The Jewish Week only that “we reached an agreement with an individual that will take full effect in October.”
The October date, coming at the start of the new Jewish year, appears to coincide with the time when membership renewals are considered.

The board’s other president, Rabbi Richard Weiss, declined to comment and would not confirm or deny that the person involved in the agreement was Rabbi Bryks.
Last June, the same Vaad ordered Queens Pita, a bakery that it certifies kosher, to terminate the ownership interest of a man, Isaac Ebstein, who had pled guilty to abuse charges involving a 10-year-old boy. The bakery’s co-owner reportedly complied in order to maintain the kosher certification.

Rabbi Bryks has held leadership positions at two Queens yeshivas, but left for unspecified reasons. He now makes his living as a mortgage broker, has a blog seeking to field questions on halachic issues and is said to involve himself in marriage counseling, advocacy for women seeking religious divorces and in a rabbinical court, the Queens Beth Din, which he convenes with other rabbis.

Asher Lipner, a clinical psychologist who counsels sex abuse victims and, in a Jewish Week op-ed last week accused the Vaad of Queens of “protecting one of their own,” without mentioning Rabbi Bryks by name, said the Vaad had a responsibility to publicize the circumstances of Rabbi Bryks’ departure from the Vaad if it has to do with the past allegations.

“If the agreement was due to some other reason that is personal and does not affect the community and they are not telling anyone, that is fine with me,” said Lipner. “But if the reason the agreement was reached is because they suspect him of being a danger to the community, it’s their responsibility to let people know why they reached that agreement in order that he doesn’t join another organization.

“They gave a heksher and made this rabbi kosher,” Lipner continued. “If they are removing their heksher, they have to tell people he is not kosher. If they don’t, it leads to more people getting hurt.”

Religious organizations generally have a free hand in expelling members as they see fit, but must be careful how they do it, said Marc Stern of the American Jewish Congress, an expert on matters of religion and law.

“The internal workings of clergy organizations are beyond the scrutiny of the court,” said Stern. But he added that leveling a specific charge of illegal conduct against an individual in the process of severing ties to him could open the organization to legal action.

“Clergy are not exempt from slander suits or defamation,” said Stern. “In general, one of the reasons for throwing people out or taking action against a member of the clergy is to alert members of the faith that X’s conduct is not acceptable and they need to be aware.”
Rabbi Bryks did not respond to two messages left at his home or to e-mails sent via his blog and Facebook.

Rabbi Schonfeld said Rabbi Bryks was never involved in any kashrut certification work, a key function of the Vaad, and never held any leadership positions in the organization. In 2008, he was reported in the Jewish Star of Long Island to be acting as an advocate on behalf of a woman trying to obtain a religious divorce, with a notation that he was a Vaad member.

Rabbi Bryks’ resignation from the RCA after 25 years of membership came at the same time the group, at its annual convention, adopted policies and procedures to deal with allegations of sexual misconduct, The Jewish Week reported at the time. But the rabbi told the council’s leadership then that the resignation should in no way be taken as admission of wrongdoing. Since he was no longer working in Jewish education, he did not need to belong to a national rabbinical council, Rabbi Hershel Billet, then the council’s immediate past president, quoted Rabbi Bryks as saying then.

A Denver native, Rabbi Bryks, as principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg was found in 1988 to have tickled and hugged some students but denied more serious charges of sexual molestation, according to press reports. While the more serious charges were not substantiated by an investigation by Winnipeg social workers, the substantiated contact was deemed inappropriate and the Winnipeg Child and Family Services agency recommended that the school adopt guidelines against such behavior. The school has since closed.

In 1993, after Rabbi Bryks had moved to New York, a former student in Winnipeg accused him of having fondled him at the school when the student was 8, but prosecutors reportedly declined to press charges, citing lack of corroboration. When the boy, Daniel Leven, at age 17, was asked to re-record a statement he had given earlier, he committed suicide.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi Charles Grysman in T.O Goes on the Record RE: Rabbi Bryks
By Rhonda J. Spivak, B.A., L.L.B.
Winnipeg Jewish Review - May 12, 2011

The case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks who has been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against children, but never charged with a crime was the subject matter of part of an episode in a documentary series entitled “Sex Scandals in Religion”

produced by Apocryphal Productions for Vision Television.

 

The episode in which the Bryk’s case wass dealt with was aired on Monday May 16, at 10: 30 p.m. 

 

According to the Jewish Week, [New York] June 29, 2010, "Rabbi Bryks, who was investigated by police in Winnipeg, on suspicion of inappropriate contact with children at Winnipeg’s Torah Academy where he was principal, resigned from the Orthodox Union’s Rabbinical Council of America in 2003 without admitting any wrongdoing. Bryks, "reached a negotiated agreement to leave the Rabbinical Board of Queens in the fall of 2009," as indicated in the Jewish Week

 

Notwithstanding the allegations of sexual abuse, Rabbi Bryk’s currently has a blog which was updated several days ago on May 4, 2011 where he posts torah commentary on the weekly parsha. http://rebtorah.com/blog/category/uncategorized/.

 

On his blog Rabbi Bryks describes himself as lecturing on “Shalom Bais” (sanctity and peace in the home) and helping “couples resolve their marital issues.”

 

Here is how Rabbi Bryks describes himself on his blog:

 

“Rabbi Ephraim Bryks is a graduate of Ner Yisroel and Yeshiva Beis Hatalmud of Jerusalem. He has smicha (Rabbinic Ordination) in Yoreh Yoreh/Yodin Yodin from numerous Rabbonim and Gedolai Yisroel. He currently heads the Beis Din of Queens and is an active member in numerous Rabbinic organizations. He lectures on a weekly basis and is often consulted on matters of halacha especially hilchos Gitten and Chosen Mishpat.

 

“As a Rov with many years of experience he also lectures on Sholom Bayis and helps couples resolve their marital issues. In cases of divorce Rabbi Bryks often acts as a mediator to resolve all the issues peacefully and amicably. Working with the legal system and the Batei Dinim he is also available to represent you on a Beis din or din Torah and bemesader the “Get” when the time comes.”

  

[Needless to say, there is no mention on his blog of any of the allegations of sexual abuse that have dogged Rabbi Bryks.] The blog has a contact section, but it does not leave any contact information {ie phone number, address) to contact Bryks. However, readers of the blog can give their contact info and submit it to him and ask questions or leave comments. [This editor has way too many questions to ask Rabbi Bryks for the allotted space].

 

"Rabbi Bryks, as principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg was found in 1988 to have tickled and hugged some students, but denied more serious charges of sexual molestation, according to press reports. While the more serious charges were not substantiated by an investigation by Winnipeg social workers, the substantiated contact was deemed inappropriate and the Winnipeg Child and Family Services agency recommended that the school adopt guidelines against such behavior," according the Jewish Week. The school closed in 1991, about a year after Rabbi Bryks left Winnipeg.

 

Allan Levine in  his recent book “Coming of Age,” on p.420, refers to "the agency issuing a report that concluded that Bryks' behavior of having children sit on his lap while he tickled them was "neither appropriate nor professional",  but not illegal." 

 

In 1993, after Rabbi Bryks moved to New York, a former student in Winnipeg accused him of having fondled him at the school when the student was 8, but prosecutors reportedly declined to file criminal charges, citing lack of corroboration. When the boy, Daniel Leven. at age 17, was asked to re-record a statement he had given earlier, he committed suicide. 

Martin Levin [Daniel’s father] will be on the upcoming episode of the documentary series on May 16. Levin, currently lives in Toronto and is the book editor of the Globe and Mail.

 

Levine in his recent book “Coming of Age,” on p.420 writes that “Daniel Levin alleged that Bryks molested him." He further wrote "According to Sarah Levin, [Daniel’s mother] Bryks had given Daniel candy to keep him quiet and told him that God would punish him if he ever told anyone what had transpired. This threat of retribution was echoed by other children who came forward.”

 

 

RABBI CHARLES GRYSMAN

Rabbi Charles Grysman

This week the Winnipeg Jewish Review spoke with Rabbi Charles Grysman, a Winnipegger now living in Toronto.  Rabbi Grysman is the Rabbi of Zichron Israel Congregation of Associated Hebrew Schools [and a reader of the Winnipeg Jewish Review].

 

Rabbi Grysman, who is an orthodox Rabbi received his smicha from the Ner Yisroel Yeshiva by Rabbi Gedalia Felder, z”l, the AV Bet Din of Toronto. He was the Director of Jewish Studies and later Vice Principal of Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate during the time when the allegations of sexual abuse by Rabbi Bryks became public.

 

When asked about the allegations against Rabbi Bryks, Rabbi Grysman, who also holds a Doctorate in Jewish Education and an MSW degree from Yeshiva University, says for the record, “I was never a supporter of Rabbi Bryks.”

 

A previous documentary was made on the case of Rabbi Bryks by CBC Television and produced by Noah Erenberg, a member of our Jewish community and a graduate of the Joseph Wolinsky class of 1982. The documentary was hosted by the late Danielle Keefler and aired nationally in February 1994.

 

Levine’s book says on page 421, “Attempts by Rabby Bryks to sue CBC and CNN, which also broadcast the documentary, were discontinued for lack of funds.”

Noah Erenberg's name is not mentioned in Levine's book on pages 419-421.

When asked to comment on the CBC documentary made by Noah Erenberg about the allegations against Bryks, Rabbi Grysman applauded Erenberg’s efforts, “I am proud to have been Noah Erenberg’s teacher. I think he was courageous in making this documentary and I have always been proud to see his commitment to the protection and welfare of children.”

When asked if he was ever contacted by Alan Levine for his book which deals with the Bryks saga on pages 419-421, Rabbi Gryman says he never spoke to Levine. Rabbi Grysman says that to the best of his knowledge Levine never tried to contact him. Grysman’s name is not mentioned in regard to the Bryks episode in Levine’s book.

 

Herzlia Adas Yeshurun Synagogue in Winnipeg, where Rabbi Bryks served, took down the plaques in his honour on the Tree of Life in the lobby of the synagogue in September, 2010. Herzlia's actions, close to 17 years after  Levin's suicide, occurred less than two months after members of the Jewish community in Winnipeg had a full opportunity to read the article by Adam Dickter, Assistant Managing Editor of the Jewish Week (New York), June 29, 2010 , which was posted in the latter part of July, 2010 on this website and elsewhere. To read this article click on Rabbi  Ephraim Bryks Leaves Rabbinical Board of Queens Under A  Cloud.

 

When asked to comment on the fact that Herzlia synagogue took down the plaques in honour of Rabbi Bryks this past September, Rabbi Grysman responded “I think that Herzlia’s taking down the plaques was a very good thing...I think it’s wonderful that Rabbi Ellis [the current Rabbi at Herzlia] did something to begin a process whereby that community could heal.”

 

In the email sent to Herzlia membership days before Yom Kippur this past year, Dr. Earl Hershfield, President of the Board of Herzlia wrote:
 “In response to repeated requests, and after much deliberation, the Board of Directors of Herzlia – Adas Yeshurun has decided to remove all plaques on the Tree of Life in the Shul lobby dedicated in honour of [Rabbi] Ephraim Bryks”[emphasis added].

He also wrote “As a Shul, we have a responsibility to provide moral and ethical leadership for our community.”

 

In the same email, he wrote “In accordance with a recent resolution taken by the Rabbinical Council of America, Herzlia – Adas Yeshurun condemns all forms of abuse in the strongest terms. Policies and procedures are being developed by your Board to direct future action. Reporting suspected abuse to the appropriate authorities does not violate the Torah’s prohibition of mesirah (turning a fellow Jew over to a non-Jewish authority) or arka’ot (adjudicating cases in a secular court). We are obligated by Jewish law to do so as the concern for saving a life and respecting the law of land are paramount.”

 

The  documentary new series will deal with the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic community, the Evangelical Christian community, as well as in Judaism and Islam. The painful saga relating to Rabbi Bryks in Winnipeg will be part of an episode that will focus on orthodoxy in Judaism, and will also deal with the orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. Former Winnipegger Alan Mendelsohn is the producer of the episode of the series relating to the Jewish community. Mendelsohn has previously worked at the CBC as a producer at The Journal

In January 2011, The Winnipeg Jewish Review has spoken to Rabbi Henry Balser who is now living in Florida.

In his book, Levine writes on page 420 “Bryks was nearly hired to head a Jewish school in Montreal until parents there learned of the allegations in Winnipeg.”

Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that he was giving spiritual advice and comfort to a family who came to him, alleging their child had been molested by Rabbi Bryks.

Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that “the vice principal from the Montreal [school] contacted me on the advice of an orthodox Rabbi.”

 

Rabbi Balser said, “I relied not just on the word of the family that I spoke with. I also did some investigation of my own, and decided then that I was on solid ground in telling the Rabbi in Montreal that I would not recommend Bryks.”

 

Rabbi Balser told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that he told the Montreal Rabbi this even though he feared potentially being sued by Bryks.

 

Balser also told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that he was thankful that Shaarey Zedek Synagogue backed him up and was willing to pay any related legal fees he may have had to incur in so doing.

 

When asked if he had ever spoken to the school in Montreal where Rabbi Bryks was nearly hired, Rabbi Grysman said he had not as “by that time I had left Winnipeg.”

Rabbi Grysman said that he did not realize that Rabbi Balser had been treating a family whose child had alleged that their son was sexually abused by Rabbi Bryks, until he read this in the Winnipeg Jewish Review. 

In his book on page 419, Levine writes that the "biggest controversy in the Herzlia's history-in fact, arguably the most controversial matter in the annals of the Winnipeg Jewish community-involved Rabbi Bryk's..." [emphasis added].

In his book on page 420  Levine refers to the Winnipeg-produced CBC television documentary about Bryks as "controversial."

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