CALL TO ACTION: Stop Musical About Serial Sexual Predator - Shlomo Carlebach
Glorifying a man who sexually assaulted hundreds if not thousands of teenage girls and young adult women? Shlomo Carlebach was nothing more then a sexual deviant who knew how to manipulate the public, like any good sociopath could.
Watch the video on the following link closely. You will hear how in this film they whitewash why Carlebach was banned from the orthodox world. They don't come out and say it directly, but indirectly they talk about him assaulting women and teenage girls.
Watch the video on the following link closely. You will hear how in this film they whitewash why Carlebach was banned from the orthodox world. They don't come out and say it directly, but indirectly they talk about him assaulting women and teenage girls.
Please help heal the multitude of women who were sexually assaulted by this once revered rabbi. Stop the production of "Soul Doctor" on Broadway. There's no need to glorify a serial sexual predator.
Read more about the case of Shlomo Carlebach here: CLICK HERE
Everyone needs to read the book Against Our Will to help understand how and why Shlomo Carlebach got away with what he did for as long as he did.
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| Stop Glorifying Serial Sexual Predator - Shlomo Carlebach by Banning the production of "Soul Doctor" on Broadway |
ReplyDelete1) There are pictures, which I saw, of Shlomo visiting R' Moshe Feinstein in the early 1980s & being warmly received. This seems to contradict somewhat the above. In the pictures, Shlomo is accompanied by one of his main students, Yehudah Witt - another alleged abuser, who followed his teacher's ways in this area too & was chased out of Jerusalem years ago by the tsenius brigade....
2) One of the women mentioned by name here told me her story first-hand as described here.
3) AFAIK, R' Zalman recognizes Shlomo's wrong behavior - but still considers him a dear friend. I am not sure if R' Zalman actually dealt with Shlomo or confronted him about this. At least R' Zalman, especially from the late 1960s & on, did not consider himself Orthodox Halachic anymore & was able to integrate a Jewish life that is more aligned with a respectful openness of body & spirit. Shlomo, however, was still trapped in the conflict of Halachic Orthodoxy & his own unorthodox persuasions. This internal tension must have just augmented his inappropriate behavior.
4) Any possibility of Shlomo to do teshuvah, as suggested here, seems very far-fetched. If there were so many victims over so many decades as mentioned, he would have to try to track them down & apologize personally & receive their forgiveness. Assuming this would be possible & assuming that everyone did apologize, there would still need to be some measures in place to avoid any further similar behavior. All of this seems like it would most likely never have happened.
5) In the early 1980s, around the time of the Rosh Chodesh confrontation mentioned here, Shlomo went on the Dov Shurin Motzoi Shabbas radio show in NY & apologized for leaving the Charedi community & lifestyle, saying he is doing teshuvah & wants to return to the heimish Boro Park fold, especially since he now has 2 small children. Yet he never followed up on that. I suspect that any similar teshuvah move he would have made then about his behavior, even in public, would not have materialized or lasted.
6) The allegations against Shlomo are not merely about sexual improprieties or harassment found in most cases, such as between adults at work or in a club, but about abnormal sexual activity that most normal people do not engage in & is illegal, namely between an adult (Shlomo) & underage females, as young as 12. This, especially coming from a rabbi figure (even if a singer), is what is most disturbing. Don't know how teshuvah takes care of that.
7) The producer of the show is also a talented person with his own flawed past, though not in the sexual improprieties area. I supposed people with troubled pasts are attracted to teachers who teach about "fixing" the past - especially when that teacher personifies in all its shades the very teachings he is espousing....
8) At a Carlebach conference several years ago at the JCC of NY, there was a panel that discussed Shlomo's "shadow" past - though I don't think it addressed it head on or accomplished anything productive. But at least it was a recognition that something was wrong, coming from his own community. This was an improvement from a few years beforehand, when the Lilith magazine piece came out & there was complete denial by the Carlebach community.
100% should be baned. He went against everything that halacha states. He was not shomer negia at all. He tried to kiss me once on the upper west side SHAME ON ALL HIS (CHAISIDIM) FOLLOWERS. IT IS A BIG CHUTZPA that chazonim today sing his songs during davining. He sang from klipa
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ReplyDeleteWe chassidishe bochurim were taught that Shlomo Carlebach was treif, and that he was "crazy" -- but everybody listened to his music (at least those who liked it - personally, I think he has always been very very overrated).
Chassidim would disagree with R' Moshe's statement that music contains no intrinsic holiness (or unholiness).
These are very important questions. I was unaware that it had been going on for so many years and that there were so many alleged victims. I recall reading one or two accounts in which the girls involved were minors, but again, I wasn't aware that so many of them were. I was also unaware that some of the women tried to confront him; I was under the impression that they only came forward years after his death.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the stories of his kindness and generosity have become legendary. It's very difficult to know what to think - and of course, there's no point in trying to discuss this with any of his followers who are still alive. They've pretty much fashioned themselves into a cult.
Carlebach is a cousin of Tropper the shtupper so maybe perversion n\is in the family.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone should also read this article. http://www.examiner.com/article/only-ny-broadway-musical-about-sexual-predator-shlomo-carlebach
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ReplyDeleteThis quote is also from Lilith Magazine.
Rabbi Goldie Milgram, is now a teacher and an associate dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York City. Back when Rabbi Milgrom was only 14 years of age, Shlomo Carlebach was a guest at her United Synagogue Youth convention in New Jersey. Her parents felt honored to have him stay at their home for the weekend. Late one night as she passed Rabbi Carlebach in the hallway of her home. She is quoted as saying: "He pulled me up against him, rubbed his hands up my body and under my cloths and pulled me up against him. He rubbed up against me; I presume he had an orgasm. He called me mammele.
Rabbi Milgram says she didn't tell her parents at the time and wasn't able to work through the incident until three years later, when she was 17 and on her first trip to Israel. Approaching the Kotel, she saw Rabbi Carlebach leading singing there and she fled. Her companion saw her distress and suggested that she "'pretend I'm him,'" recalls Rabbi Milgram. "All I remember is screaming 'Who are you? Why did you do that? I was so excited that you came to my house and then . . . '"
He tried to kiss me once on the upper west side SHAME ON ALL HIS (CHAISIDIM) FOLLOWERS. IT IS A BIG CHUTZPA that chazonim today sing his songs during davining. He sang from klipa
ReplyDeleteyikes! he tried to kiss me too. it was a complete turn off.
ReplyDeletei'm sure he's a good guy but i never thought he was holy AT ALL.
and if he was, i am too.
Oh, Puh-leeeeze.
ReplyDeleteI go to the Carlebach shul in NYC whenever I can, and I must say it, this is probably one of the nicest shuls with the nicest people that I have ever been to.
Give it a rest already....
When I was a girl in yeshiva I was told to stay the *&%$ away from Carlebach. In my adulthood, I find most shuls completely uninspiring. There is something unique and special about Carlebach. I really don't know what more to say.... other than I'm not willing to ban all the people who go to the shul and all the events that take place there and in connection to it, because of some controversial stuff that I had nothing to do with.
The women are telling the truth. He was a guest for Shabbat,at my home and came on to me unbeknown to my husband. He kept calling me for years in spite of my request to stop it. The calls were very late at night (My husband was on call at night) from hotels and the topics very inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteI felt ashamed and guilty like it's my doing or fault. I was very young and naive and was afraid to tell my husband. (This made it worth because I kept a secret from him out of fear of looking bad...)
Today I know better and would have spoken up putting a stop to it. The Holy persona and beautiful T'filot we all we all grew up on, helped the confusion.
Thank G-d I never allowed it to become intimate. I still get nauseous thinking about it.
Playwright Daniel Wise, who produced the musical Soul Doctor: “After over 100 interviews with credible individuals and researching dozens of credible documents and published articles, there was nothing I could find to support such allegations.” Lisa Alcalay Klug, "Shlomo Carlebach's Life Comes to the Stage in Soul Doctor", JTA, The Global News Service of the Jewish People, Aug. 14, 2012.
ReplyDeleteResponding on May 30, 1959, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein answered Shmuel Dishon that it is permissible to play Carlebach tunes at weddings because this singer is not an apikorus (a heretic) or a mumar lete’avon (a transgressor for pleasure); his transgression is merely “kalut rosh and peritzut” in that he performs before mixed audiences (Even HaEzer, 1, 96). The hugging was not mentioned because there was no hugging in 1959.
ReplyDeleteHere is the excerpt from the original Hebrew responsa of Rav Moshe Feinstein.
והנה בעובדא זו שהסני שומעניה אינו בעניני כפירה אלא בעניני קלות ראש לנגן בפני בחורים ובתולות יחד שודאי אין להחשיבו כמין ואפיקורס ואף לא כמומר לתיאבון דהא רק לדבר אחד דקלות ראש ופריצות הוא עבריין לתיאבון מסתבר שעל אדם כזה אין למילף שיהיה דין וחיוב שלא להניח שם לו ולמעשיו. ואדרבה הא ברור שהס"ת שיכתוב איש כזה יהיה כשר
Yes, but Danny Wise is dishonest and nogeah b'davar, and the victims people who are named in the Lilith story are known, credible people.
ReplyDeletePut more simply, Danny Wise is most certainly lying.
ust for your info in 1953 Lubavitcher Rebbe told Carlebach about how he handles the issues relating to men and women and other issues. He told him If you cannot abide by the strict law, then we must now go our separate ways. Carlebach was no longer a Lubavitcher, but on his own. I was told this by a very close family member of his.
ReplyDelete"So what if he assaulted girls and women, he was so talented!", are usually all over posts about abuse and rape in Orthodox enclaves?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like too many of you operate under the rubric "Sexual assault and rape is bad, unless it's perpetrated by someone popular who I really, really like".
Disgusting hypocrites. Look at yourselves. You can take the yid out of the shtetl, but you clearly can't take the shtetl out of the yid. What if it was your twelve year old daughter being groped?
Before you get all self-righteous and angry, imagine the perpetrator was your precious Shlomo. Imagine the victim is your daughter or sister. Feel the cognitive dissonance as you remember championing him, then think of people saying the same thing you did to the victim.
That's why women are so reluctant to report assaults and rapes.