Case of Evan Zauder
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Yeshiva University Rabbinical Student - Washington Heights, NY
Former Teacher - Yeshivat Noam, Paramus, NJ
Former Youth Director - Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, Teaneck, NJ
Founding / Former Director of Yeshivat HaKotel Alumni Association of America
Former Director of Youth Programming - Hebrew Institute, Riverdale, NY
Former Youth Director - Bnei Akiva Youth Groups
Yeshivat HaKotel, Jerusalem Israel
CHAT High School - Toronto, Canada
Convicted Sex Offender. Evan Zauder plead guilty to child exploitation and distributing child pornography was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison.
Evan Zauder was a dual masters student and a Jim Joseph Fellow in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU.
After high school graduation from CHAT in Toronto, Canada, he studied for two years at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem, Israel.
Zauder continued his education at Yeshiva University and received an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a minor in Hebrew Language.
Upon his arrival in New York, he began working for Bnei Akiva of New York as a Regional Director, and quickly moved his way up the ranks at Bnei Akiva to director of the In-School Programming division.
Zauder is also the former Director of Youth Programming at The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, and he spends his summers working for Bnei Akiva of North America. He was the former director of a post-tenth grade summer program in Israel.
Evan Zauder also founding and former Director of the Yeshivat HaKotel Alumni Association of America.
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Table of Contents:
2012
- Complaint - Zaunders Vs. US Department of Justice (05/02/2012)
- Manhattan U.S. Attorney and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Announce Arrest of New Jersey Teacher for Possessing Child Pornography (05/03/2012)
- After Arrest of Teacher, Questions About Vetting (05/08/2012)
2013
- Ex-Bergen Yeshiva Teacher Pleads Guilty in Child Pornography Case (01/23/2013)
2014
- Pelcovitz and Leading Orthodox Rabbis Line Up Behind Sex Offender Evan Zauder (03/31/2014)
- Y.U. rabbinical student sentenced to 13 years in abuse case (04/03/2014)
- Case to Support Victim: A Teanecker Speaks Out (04/03/2014)
- Yeshiva University Rabbis, Professor Asked for Leniency for Child Abuser (04/03/2014)
Also See:
- Download Zauder sentencing letters A
- Download Zauder, Evan sentencing letters B
- Download Zauder, Evan sentencing letters C
- Download US Sentencing Memorandum Zauder, Evan
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Complaint - Zaunders Vs. US Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice - May 2, 2012
Manhattan U.S. Attorney and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Announce Arrest of New Jersey Teacher for Possessing Child Pornography
FBI - May 3, 2012
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After Arrest of Teacher, Questions About Vetting
Ex-Bergen Yeshiva Teacher Pleads Guilty in Child Pornography Case
By Hella Winston
Jewish Week - May 8, 2012
New revelations of Zauder’s apparent online activity on social media sites.
Evan Zauder, a teacher at a Paramus, N.J., day school, was arrested for possession of child pornography.
In the wake of the shocking arrest last week of a yeshiva teacher and youth worker for possession of child pornography, attention is turning to how day school — and indeed, all — teachers are vetted, and how to balance the need to ensure children’s safety with legal concerns about discrimination and privacy.
Evan Zauder, a sixth-grade teacher at the Modern Orthodox school Yeshivat Noam in Paramus, N.J, was arrested last Thursday after a tip led the FBI to his Manhattan apartment, where agents reportedly found on his computer hundreds of images and videos of boys engaged in sex acts. If convicted, Zauder faces up to 10 years in jail and a maximum fine of $250,000.
Based on an Internet search, Zauder appears to have been involved in viewing and/or posting pornographic material online — including videos of him masturbating — as far back as 2007, The Jewish Week has discovered. It is unclear whether or not any of that material is considered illegal.
Zauder, 26, has a history of working with young people, as a former youth director at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck and a former part-time youth director at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx and with Bnei Akiva, a Modern Orthodox Zionist youth group. He also is in the master’s of education program at New York University, where he is a Jim Joseph Foundation fellow, and is a rabbinical student at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.
In a statement reported in the Teaneck Patch, Yeshivat Noam’s principal, Rabbi Chaim Hagler, said that, “At this point, we have no reason to believe that any of our students are in any way involved or directly affected.”
The Jewish Week knows of no reports indicating that Zauder has actually molested a child. However, a Google search by the paper of his AOL Instant Messenger screen name — which appears next to his real name on a message board for Teaneck Youth Directors and on a website for Congregation Bnai Yeshurun — turns up a list of links that contain that screen name, as well as descriptions that indicate that the sites they lead to display pornographic images or videos. Some of these have the word “teen” in the title (which does not necessarily mean that those pictured on these sites are in fact underage) and apparently feature males.
The Jewish Week was able to determine that the screen name that appears in these links is very likely to be Zauder’s because the videos of him masturbating, in which his face is clearly visible, appear on a playlist for his screen name. The same AOL screen name appears in the “sex” section of a message board for Jewish teens next to a message posted in 2004 and linked to someone identifying himself as being from Toronto with a birth date in January 1986; Zauder attended high school in Toronto and is 26 years old.
Rabbi Hagler did not return calls from The Jewish Week seeking information about whether the school performed a background check on Zauder. But Rabbi Hagler told the Forward that Zauder “had been the ‘subject of extensive interviews and received multiple positive background references.’”
These comments would seem to indicate that the school did not conduct a formal background check on Zauder, something it is not legally mandated to do and which, if limited to a criminal history, nonetheless may not have turned up Zauder’s online activities.
Indeed, Rabbi Ellis Bloch, the associate director of the Jewish Education Project, an organization that works with 300 day schools in New York City, Westchester and Long Island, and seeks to encourage and promote innovation in Jewish education, told The Jewish Week, “I think we need to have a little bit of perspective on this. If you look at the literature in the business world, the idea of Googling an applicant is something that only recently has come to light. So, to find that schools may not have done this is not too surprising because the idea of doing this is so new.”
Calls to the Ramaz School, the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) and the Yeshivah of Flatbush seeking comment on their vetting policies for teachers were not immediately returned.
Mark Shinar, the director of general studies at SAR in Riverdale, wrote in an e-mail to The Jewish Week, “Aside from interviews and complete reference checks, SAR does run criminal background checks on all potential employees.”
Since 1986, the New Jersey Department of Education has required all new school district employees to be fingerprinted and undergo a criminal history background check. However, no such requirement exists for New Jersey’s private schools, for which such background checks remain optional. (A 2007 report by the New Jersey State Legislature’s Office of Legislative Services notes that approximately 50 percent of non-public New Jersey schools have chosen voluntarily to go through the Department of Education criminal background check). New York State law requires all applicants for certification and all prospective employees of school districts, charter schools and boards of cooperative educational services to undergo fingerprint-supported criminal history background checks.
The Archdiocese of New York has a Safe Environment Program that, among other things, mandates that all prospective staff members, including volunteers, in regular contact with children submit to a background check and fill out a questionnaire calling for basic background information, such as prior employment and character references. The background check is limited to verification of a person’s identity, existence of a prior criminal record and listing on state sex-offender registries.
Indeed, in recent years mandatory fingerprinting and background checks for Jewish school employees have been a high priority for some Jewish child safety advocates.
The Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, headed by attorney Elliot Pasik, was instrumental in obtaining the passage of a 2007 New York State law authorizing yeshivas and all nonpublic schools to fingerprint and conduct FBI criminal history background checks on their employees. That law, however, stopped short of requiring these measures and, according to a 2010 article in the New York Post, since the law passed, fewer than 1 percent of New York State’s 1,900 private schools were running fingerprint checks on job applicants. Based on information obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request in 2010, Pasik found that only one out of the nearly 400 Jewish schools in New York State had taken advantage of the ability to conduct a fingerprint check.
According to the JEP’s Rabbi Bloch, the issue of background checks has come up “at principals’ councils’ meetings over the past number of years.” However, he noted that “it is hard to get a handle on the number of schools doing background checks, since each of the schools is an independent entity and they guard their independence.”
In fact, in response to an e-mail from The Jewish Week, Richard Langer, the executive director of The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, where Zauder was employed, noted that while youth directors have “always gone through an extensive interview process and reference checks … this past winter the synagogue formally adopted a policy of requiring all new hires at the synagogue to undergo a background check.”
While apparent evidence of Zauder’s involvement with pornography was not difficult to find through some basic Google searching, experts urge caution in general in using information that is publicly posted online to make hiring decisions.
According to an October 2010 public employment law bulletin put out by the University of North Carolina School of Government, “almost half of the employers responding to a 2009 survey by the employment website Career Builder.com reported using social media Internet sites as a part of their background check on job applicants.” However, while getting information that is publicly posted online about a prospective employee is not illegal, using that information to make hiring decisions can be, if it is the basis for discrimination based on personal characteristics such as race, gender, religion, disability and age.
Indeed, had any of the schools or other organizations for which Zauder had worked come across this material during the hiring process, Murray Schwartz, a lawyer in practice for 60 years specializing in employment discrimination, would have advised them — assuming the material was not in fact illegal — to confront Zauder.
“Call him in and confront him with it. Give him a chance to explain. I would probably say that transparency becomes very, very important and that [the potential employer] do everything they can to learn as much as they can because they are being given the greatest obligation anybody could undertake — caring for children.”
Getting as much information as possible “before [the potential employer] might do anything that might interfere with this person’s human rights, or whatever rights they have,” is important, added Schwartz, because “you want to be able to satisfy your obligations to him as a potential employer.”
But, he emphasized, “you also certainly want to satisfy your obligations to the children you’re caring for.”
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Ex-Bergen Yeshiva Teacher Pleads Guilty in Child Pornography Case
By Noah Cohen
Teaneck Patch - January 23, 2013
Former teacher used the Internet to target teen in New Jersey, according to federal prosecutors.
A former teacher at a Paramus Yeshiva who worked with youth in Teaneck has pleaded guilty to child pornography and exploitation charges, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
The ex-Yeshivat Noam teacher, 27-year-old Evan Zauder, used the Internet to entice a 14 to 15-year old in New Jersey to engage in sexual activity two times between April and November of 2011, prosecutors said. Between December 2010 and May 2011, he also amassed a collection of hundreds of videos and pictures showing child pornography stored on four devices seized during an FBI search of his Manhattan apartment in May.
“Evan Zauder’s abuse and exploitation of minors was heinous criminal conduct perpetrated on some of the most vulnerable and powerless members of society,” Manhattan U.S Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
Acting on a tip, FBI agents raided Zauder’s apartment and discovered graphic videos on his computer showing young boys engaged in sex acts, court papers filed after his arrest showed.
Yeshivat Noam, a Modern Orthodox school serving students from Teaneck and across the area, suspended Zauder following his arrest, according to a letter issued to parents. Federal authorities said there was no evidence that Zauder’s crimes involved students at the school.
Zauder has a history of working with young people in New York and New Jersey. He is an ex-youth director at Teaneck’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun and a former part-time youth director at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in New York City.
Prosecutors said Zauder pleaded guilty to one count of enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, one count of transportation, receipt, and distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. He faces a possible life sentence on the enticement charge, along with a maximum 20 year prison term on the child pornography distribution charge and ten years for the possession charge.
He will be sentenced May 22 in Manhattan federal court.
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Pelcovitz and Leading Orthodox Rabbis Line Up Behind Sex Offender Evan Zauder
By David Cheifetz
Frum Follies - March 31, 2014
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Pelcovitz and Leading Orthodox Rabbis Line Up Behind Sex Offender Evan Zauder
By David Cheifetz
Frum Follies - March 31, 2014
About a year ago I came forward in the pages of The Jewish Week and shared my experience as a victim of sexual abuse by a senior member of the staff at Camp Dora Golding in 1979. I also had the opportunity to address the annual conference of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) on the topic. In both instances and in other articlesand venues, I spoke about the challenge that we face in the Orthodox community regarding a pervasive tolerance of sexual abuse of children.
This is not limited to any corner of the Orthodox community – It exists in the Modern Orthodox world just as it exists in the Ultra-Orthodox world. And while there is a growing recognition of this scourge, there has been little progress in addressing the underlying culture that tolerates abuse and excuses Orthodox pedophiles. Indeed, when someone is accused of abuse, and even found guilty of committing heinous acts of sexual abuse against minors, many communal leaders continue to bend over backwards to show Rachmunus (mercy and empathy) to the perpetrators, and little regard to the victims.
The terrible phenomenon has been highlighted once again this past week, coinciding with the scheduled sentencing of Evan Zauder. Evan Zauder, was a teacher at the Modern Orthodox Day School Yeshivat Noam located in Paramus New Jersey. Zauder also had a long history of working with Jewish youth, including as a synagogue youth director and participant in numerous youth related programs. In 2012, Zauder was arrested for possessing child pornography, and was subsequently found by the US Government to have distributed child pornography as well. He was also found to have engaged in illicit sexual relationships with underage males that involved graphic discussion, mutual masturbation, and oral sex.
Once caught, Zauder pleaded guilty to his crimes. As stated in a press release issued by the FBI on January 22, 2013,
Evan Zauder, a former sixth-grade teacher at a private school in New Jersey, pled guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges of using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity and to receipt, distribution, and possession of child pornography.
The sentencing document offers graphic disturbing details:
Pursuant to the May 1, 2012 search warrant and a subsequent search warrant, agents recovered from Zauder’s apartment, among other items, two Macintosh laptop computers and a Memorex DVD belonging to Zauder. As set forth in detail in the PSR, forensic examination subsequently revealed hundreds of images and videos of child pornography on these devices, and revealed that Zauder had used Skype file transfer to receive and transmit multiple images and videos of child pornography, including child pornography involving prepubescent minors and child pornography containing sadistic or masochistic material. See PSR ¶¶ 17-19. …
One of the minors who has been identified, Minor-1, engaged in a Skype text chat with Zauder on or about April 14, 2011, in which Zauder asked Minor-1 if he wanted to meet in person with Zauder. PSR ¶ 20. Zauder and Minor-1 met in a car in a park in New Jersey, and Zauder received oral sex from Minor-1. PSR ¶ 20. In a text chat with a third party two weeks after the encounter with Minor-1, Zauder described convincing Minor-1 to perform oral sex on him. PSR ¶ 21.”
(Note: The above public link has been inconsistently available. However, all documentation cited is available on the PACER System of the United States Courts System, Docket Number 12-CR-659)
As bad as Zauder’s crimes were, perhaps, more disturbing for the community, is that when it came to the sentencing, many Modern Orthodox leaders lined up to write personal pleas for leniency. Major figureheads, including senior leaders of Yeshiva University, were keen to support an egregious Orthodox sex offender. They include:
- Rabbi Kenneth Brander
Rabbi Kenneth (Kenny) Brander, Yeshiva University Vice President (Exhibit 4)
- Dr. David Pecovitz, Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Chair in Psychology and Jewish Education at the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University. He is also special assistant to President Richard M. Joel. In addition, Dr. Pelcovitz is an instructor in pastoral counseling at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Exhibit 33)
Rabbi Brander and Dr. Pelcovitz are designated by Yeshiva University as the point men charged with creating anti-sexual abuse policies.)
- Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Rabbi, Congregation Bnei Yeshurun or Teaneck New Jersey (Exhibit 34)
- Rabbi Ezra Schwartz, Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshiva University (Exhibit 36)
- Rabbi Reuven Taragin, Dean Yeshivat HaKotel (Exhibit 42)
- Rabbi Baruch Taub, Rabbi Emeritus of Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto Congregation (Exhibit 43)
Some of these character endorsements have been largely “milquetoast” boiler plate, such as the note from Rabbi Brander. But others, like the note of Dr. Pelcovitz, go so far as to suggest an almost diagnostic note of support. Excerpts from Dr. Pelcovitz’s letter include:
…I spent most of my career treating the victims of child sexual abuse in the specialized clinical and research program that we has at the North Shore University Hospital, which was then part of the NYU School of Medicine. In light of this expertise and the qualities I saw in Evan when he was my student, I hope that this letter can provide a perspective that can help justice be tempered with mercy when Evan is sentenced.
In my interactions with Evan during and after class, what came through most, was his warmth, empathy, concern for others and genuine commitment to serve the community. In my meeting with him after his arrest he wasn’t in the least bit defensive about his actions. He expressed sincere regret and remorse, wishing that he has the strength to get professional help for his problem before they reached the disastrous proportions that brought him to your courtroom.
In over thirty year of practice, I have had the opportunity to treat many individuals with issues in the area of controlling their sexuality. As you know, the prognosis for sustained change is often guarded. In the case of Evan, however, I believe that he possesses many of the ingredients that I have come to associate with sustained change and potential to be a valuable member of society…
Note by Yerachmiel Lopin: you can see the entire Pelcovitz letter in page 21 of thissentencing document which was submitted to the court.
Other letters focus on Zauder’s character and “likeability” amongst students. The following from Rabbi Tarragin of Yeshivat HaKotel,
My relationship with (Zauder) continued even after he left yeshiva as he has been instrumental in helping other students grow both personally and as part of our alumni association. This Alumni Association was founded by Evan in 2007 and he has been directing the associations ever since, raising funds and running alumni events…
“Beyond Yeshivat Hakotel activities, Evan has been and major leader in a number of other student organizations line B’nei Akiva. He ran an Israel program for them last year in which he was responsible for over one hundred teenagers. Many of the teenagers and staff members he worked with have told me about how caring and responsible a leader he was…”
What is it, exactly, that makes leaders of the Orthodox community have Rachmunus on the perpetrators, but be insensitive to the needs and feelings of the victims?
I would suggest that perhaps in cases such as this, when one knows the perpetrator or the perpetrator’s family, one has worked with the perpetrator, or perhaps sat next to him in synagogue for years, the individual feels an empathy for the perpetrator who is accused or is about to be incarcerated.
However, since they do not know the victims – not in person and perhaps not even by name – there is no such empathy. They are nameless, faceless, disembodied characters who have contributed to the travails of the perpetrator. Little or no thought is given to the short and long-term impact on the mental and physical health of the victims, the fact that the victims are likely to suffer from depression, relationship problems, substance abuse, or other problems throughout their lives. The fact that the victims carry within them a lifelong time bomb that may ultimately result in severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know. I carried such a time bomb.
Would Rabbi Brander or Dr. Pelcovitz or Rabbi Pruzansky or Rabbi Schwartz or Rabbi Taragin or any of the other letter writers have written the same notes of character endorsement if they had known the victims of Evan Zauder? Would they have shown the same Rachmanus to Zauder if the child captured in the graphic pornography, or the adolescent who engaged in graphic sexual discussion via Skype, or the adolescent who performed oral sex on 27 year old Evan Zauder in a car after meeting him on the internet was a neighbor of theirs, a student, a relative, or their own child or grandchild?
What will it take for our Orthodox Community to recognize that sexual abuse of minors in our community is a plague that has long-term destructive impact on victims? When will the Orthodox leadership begin to recognize that Mitzvot Bain Adam LeChaveiro require you to consider the victims, the misfortunate, the silent and the silenced, and not just one’s friends and family and prestigious members of the community? When will these Orthodox leaders start having Rachmunus on the victims instead of on the perpetrators?
Until that time, one must question the underlying judgment and integrity of the individuals who would advocate for such abusers, and the institutions that they represent.
And what can we do? We can call out bad behavior. We can speak out with our voices. And we can speak out with our dollars.
Y.U. rabbinical student sentenced to 13 years in abuse case
JTA - April 3, 2014
A Yeshiva University rabbinical student who pleaded guilty to child exploitation and distributing child pornography was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison.
Evan Zauder, 28, was sentenced on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York, the Y.U. student newspaper, The Commentator, reported Thursday.
Rabbis and a professor from Yeshiva University had written letters to Judge Lewis Kaplan requesting leniency in his sentencing.
Zauder pleaded guilty in January 2013 to one count each of enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity; transporting, receiving and distributing child pornography; and possessing child pornography.
He was arrested in May 2012 after the FBI raided his Manhattan apartment and discovered on his computer hundreds of images and videos of boys engaged in sex acts.
Zauder, who worked as a sixth-grade teacher at the modern Orthodox school Yeshivat Noam in Paramus, N.J., also was charged with having relations in 2011 with a 14-year-old male he met on the Internet. The teen was not a student at Yeshivat Noam.
The letters for leniency from family members and friends at Yeshiva University requested the minimum sentence of 10 years.
Y.U. staff who wrote letters in support of Zauder included Rabbi Ezra Y. Schwartz, a rosh yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary; David Pelcovitz, a psychology and Jewish education professor and an instructor in pastoral counseling; and Rabbi Kenneth Brander, vice president for university and community life.
Zauder also served as a former youth director at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck and a former part-time youth director with Bnei Akiva youth groups, according to The Commentator.
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Case to Support Victim: A Teanecker Speaks Out
The Jewish Link of Bergen County - April 3, 2014
A few weeks ago, Sam Kellner, who blew the whistle on child molester Baruch Lebovits for sexually assaulting his son, was acquitted of charges brought against him by Lebovits’ defenders. It was a case where one of Lebovits’ victims was “turned” and testified that Kellner had attempted to bribe witnesses. When the witness recanted his old testimony and was deemed unreliable, the case was finally thrown out of court. It bears repeating that the witness is believed to have been one of Lebovits’ victims, along with his son. The victims were once again victimized, as was the person who went to their defense.
After the Baruch Lanner case which ripped apart Bergen County’s Jewish community as well as the Modern Orthodox establishment, it was assumed that there would be zero tolerance for child abusers. Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be the case, and last year’s expose of abuse at Yeshiva University, and the cover-ups that had gone on for decades, brought more victims out of the shadows—victims who had been marginalized when they reported to their rabbis what happened to them.
The recent Evan Zauder case is a case that, once again, has hit the community very hard. Zauder, who was a teacher at Yeshivat Noam, worked at NCSY and was a youth director at CBY, someone who was constantly around young people and children, and everyone liked him. No one suspected that he collected child pornography and arranged trysts with underage boys on the Internet—and more.
Two years ago, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that Zauder pled guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges of using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity and to receipt, distribution, and possession of child pornography. Zauder pled guilty before United States District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. His criminal conduct is not currently known to have involved any students at the school.
Zauder faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison on the enticement count; a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years on the transportation, receipt, and distribution count; and a maximum sentence of 10 years on the possession count. For each of the three counts in the superseding information, Zauder faces a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.
One of the people affected by these revelations was a victim of child sexual abuse more than 30 years ago at Camp Dora Golding—when he, not the abuser, was told to pack his bags and go. David Cheifetz, a resident of Teaneck, is fighting back and is the founder of a new non-profit organization, Mi Li – Who Is For Me? Its mission is to educate the Jewish community about sexual abuse of children and provide support to victims and their families.
In an impassioned blog post last week, Cheifetz, wrote about the things he discovered in the public court documents concerning Evan Zauder’s sentencing, including a number of character references written by local rabbis and community leaders on Zauder’s behalf. While in many cases leaders issue these letters as pro-forma matters in cases concerning white collar crime, Cheifetz pleaded with leaders, who he mentions by name, not to do that. What he found particularly hurtful were two letters that spoke of Zauder in glowing terms, as if what he did was a momentary aberration or something that can be mediated, much as an alcoholic or drug addict can be treated. Some of the letters were written by people whose names are extremely familiar to the Bergen County Jewish community.
And while he says that child sexual offenders have the right to defend themselves, Jewish leadership does not have to be involved in that process, and reminds everyone that it was the he rabbis who ignored the victims who came to them with their stories, who poo-poohed them, and protected their predators.
“Do I not have the right to seek justice? Do I not have the right to try to protect others?” asks Cheifetz.
He ponders why the rabbis have no empathy for the victims. “They do not know the victims—not in person and perhaps not even by name—there is no such empathy [as displayed for the perpetrators]. They are nameless, faceless, disembodied characters who have contributed to the travails of the perpetrator. Little or no thought is given to the short and long-term impact on the mental and physical health of the victims, the fact that the victims are likely to suffer from depression, relationship problems, substance abuse, or other problems throughout their lives. The fact that the victims carry within them a lifelong time bomb that may ultimately result in severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know. I carried such a time bomb.
“What will it take for our Orthodox Community to recognize that sexual abuse of minors in our community is a plague that has long-term destructive impact on victims? When will the Orthodox leadership begin to recognize that Mitzvot Bain Adam LeChaveiro require you to consider the victims, the misfortunate, the silent and the silenced, and not just one’s friends and family and prestigious members of the community? When will these Orthodox leaders start having Rachmunus on the victims instead of on the perpetrators?
“Until that time, one must question the underlying judgment and integrity of the individuals who would advocate for such abusers, and the institutions that they represent. And what can we do? We can call out bad behavior. We can speak out with our voices. And we can speak out with our dollars.” And we must report the crimes.
The FBI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at (212) 384-1000. It is staffed around the clock by investigators. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at (800) 843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com.
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Yeshiva University Rabbis, Professor Asked for Leniency for Child Abuser
By Gavriel Brown
The Commentator - April 4, 2014
Yeshiva College alumnus Evan Zauder (YC ‘09), who pled guilty to one count of enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, one count of transportation, receipt, and distribution of child pornography, and one count of possession of child pornography on January 3, 2013, garnered the support of rabbis and a professor who taught him at Yeshiva University. A number of his supporters within the university wrote personal pleas of leniency, letters commonly written at the conclusion of a trial, to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the United States District Court in New York.
Zauder, a sixth grade teacher at Yeshivat Noam in New Jersey, was a former youth director at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck and a former part-time youth director with Bnei Akiva youth groups. He was also pursuing a master’s of education program at New York University and Semikah at RIETS when he was apprehended by the FBI. A spokesperson for the United States District Attorney told The Commentator that Zauder was sentenced to 156 months in Federal Prison Tuesday, April 1, 2014.
According to court documents, Zauder was in possession of two laptops and a number of DVDs containing “hundreds of images and videos of child pornography” including “child pornography involving prepubescent minors and child pornography containing sadistic or masochistic material.” The trial also revealed that on April 14, 2011, Zauder solicited sex from a male minor between the ages of 14 and 15 in a park in New Jersey and continued a relationship with the boy for several months. A text message sent by Zauder to a third party and intercepted by the FBI described Zauder “convincing Minor-1 to perform oral sex on him.”
Dr. David Pelcovitz, Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Chair in Psychology and Jewish Education at Azrieli, special assistant to YU’s President Richard Joel, and an instructor in pastoral counseling at YU’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, asked Judge Kaplan for the “lowest sentence permitted under the law” because of “Evan’s advanced capacity for self awareness and empathy.”
In an interview with The Commentator, Dr. Pelcovitz, who authored Child Abuse in the Jewish Community and peer reviewed publications on child physical abuse and emotional abuse, claimed that, at the time of his writing the letter, the only charge he was aware of against Zauder was child pornography use. “I would never have done this if there was a direct victim involved,” he said.
However court records show that reports of Zauder’s abuse of a minor were released in early January 2013, when Zauder plead guilty to enticement. The FBI press release related to the case was carried in multiple Jewish papers that week, while the letters in support of leniency are dated from February through April of 2013. Although the date of Dr. Pelcovitz’s letter was blacked out by the court, none of the post-trial leniency letters written in support of Zauder were dated before February 1, 2013.
“The market for child pornography creates demand for production of images, and every photo and video is a record of abuse.” -– FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedarcyk
“The purpose of the letter was not a clinical evaluation, it was asking that justice be tempered with mercy.” Dr. Pelcovitz, a child abuse advocate since the 1970s, told The Commentator. He urged “nuance” in this case involving his former student, arguing that “child pornography use rarely translates into physical abuse of minors [...] The letter was just saying that, maybe, Evan will respond to treatment after his jail time.”
Dr. Pelcovitz, who said prison terms for convicted possessors of child pornography were often “draconian,” concluded, “You have to understand that this was not arguing that he shouldn’t be punished. It’s common that people in the community argue that some of his redeeming features should be taken into account by the judge.”
In another letter, Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Ezra Y. Schwartz said that “I believe that a contributing factor in his terrible acts were a number of difficult personal situations, the death of his brother, and his sister’s divorce.” Rabbi Schwartz asked for “mercy in his sentencing.” Rabbi Schwartz declined to comment.
Yeshiva University Vice President for University and Community Life Rabbi Kenneth Brander said that as a student of his at RIETS, Zauder’s “questions in class were very much focused on the balance that clergy must struggle between caring for their congregation and concern for general needs of the local community and society.” Brander noted Zauder’s participation in service missions and asked that the judge “take these personal reflections into consideration.” Rabbi Brander did not respond to multiple email messages and calls to his office.
Zauder’s family members and friends from Yeshiva University also wrote letters in support of the lowest possible sentence of ten years. Uri Westrich, YC ‘09, wrote that “He is fun to be around, and I feel that I have learned a lot from him.” He concluded his letter, “I truly believe that Evan has a great deal of good to contribute to the world and for that reason implore the court to impose the lowest sentence permitted under the law.” Westrich declined to comment.
Other prominent members of the modern and centrist Orthodox communities lined up in support of Zauder. Rabbi Reuven Taragin, dean of overseas students at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem, asked the court for the “maximum possible leniency” based on Zauder’s “good heartedness and community service.” The Commentator was unable to reach Rabbi Taragin by the time of publication.
None of the letters by those affiliated with Yeshiva University acknowledged Zauder’s victims. “If there were victims I would have certainly acknowledged them,” Dr. Pelcovitz said. FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedarcyk stated in a bureau press release about this case that “The market for child pornography creates demand for production of images, and every photo and video is a record of abuse.”
David Cheifetz, founder of the sexual abuse support group “Mi Li–Who Is For Me,” published the letters last week. “Would Rabbi Brander or Dr. Pelcovitz or Rabbi Pruzansky or Rabbi Schwartz or Rabbi Taragin or any of the other letter writers have written the same notes of character endorsement if they had known the victims of Evan Zauder?” Cheifetz wrote on the website Frum Follies.
“Evan Zauder’s abuse and exploitation of minors was heinous criminal conduct perpetrated on some of the most vulnerable and powerless members of society,” Manhattan U.S Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. Zauder faced a possible life sentence on the enticement charge, along with a maximum 20 year prison term on the child pornography distribution charge and ten years for the possession charge. The minimum sentence on his crimes was 10 years.
In an August 26, 2013 letter to students after the Sullivan & Cromwell report on sexual abuse at YU’s MTA high school, President Joel assured the community that “using our resources and the talents of our experts and educators, YU will launch new efforts to supplement our existing programs and to strengthen awareness of, and to combat, abuse in our community.” He said that “Yeshiva University and communities everywhere will persevere with an unwavering commitment to protect our children as they themselves develop into the stewards of tomorrow.”
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