Wednesday, December 05, 2001

Case of Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov

Case of Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov
(AKA: Mordecai Yomtov)
Chabad Chedar Menachem School - Los Angeles, CA
Yeshivah College - Melbourne, Australia
This convicted sex offender has been in 
violation of registration requirements since March 21, 2003.
 
WARNING: Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov, is in violation of sex offender registration requirements in California for nearly 10 years. If you know his whereabout please notify the California authorities at: (916) 227-4974. 
 
Mordecai Yomtov was convicted of sexual abuse and committing lewd acts against three boys).  Yomtov was born in Australia.  He taught 8- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a school with 220 boys, kindergarten through eighth grade, on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Boulevard-La Brea Avenue neighborhood.

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Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs. 
 
Table of Contents:
 
2001
  1. PRESS RELEASE:  "Child Molester Arrested" (12/05/2001)
  2. A Rabbi Is Accused Of Molesting A Student - More Possible Victims  (12/06/2001)
  3. Los Angeles; Rabbi Accused of Molesting Young Male Students (12/07/2001)
  4. Rabbi Jailed: Instructor at Cheder Menachem grade school accused of molesting boys. (12/14/2001)
  5. Rabbi sentenced to year in prison for lewd acts (12/21/2001)
  6. Rabbi arrested on 10 counts of molestation  (12/21/2001)
  7. Rabbi Accused of Molesting Young Male Students  (12/07/2001)
  8. Instructor at Cheder Menachem grade school accused of molesting boys  (12/14/2001)
  9. Rabbi Jailed  (12/31/2001)

2002
  1. Yomtov Pleads Guilty (02/02/2002)
  2. Hebrew Teacher Pleads Guilty to Lewd Acts (02/05/2002)
     
2003
  1.  Schools Adopt Guide to Block Sex Abuse (06/20/2003)

2005
  1. WARNING: Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov Missing (10/11/2005)

2007
  1. Dealing With Schmutz (08/17/2007)
  2. LAUSD settles suit from 2 teens (12/13/2007)

2008
  1. California Department of Justice (10/11/2005)


2012
  1. Child Sex-Abuse Scandal in Australia's Jewish Community Spills Into U.S. -
    Allegations Surface That Child Molesters Were Protected  (02/17/2012)
____________________________________________________________________________________

PRESS RELEASE 
 "Child Molester Arrested"
Los Angeles Police Department - December 5, 2001






____________________________________________________________________________________

A Rabbi Is Accused Of Molesting A Student - More Possible Victims
ABC News - Dec 6, 2001


LOS ANGELES — There could be more victims. That is the word from Los Angeles police as they probe the case of a Hollywood-area Rabbi arrested on suspicion of child molestation. 
 
Mordechai Yomtov, 36, was arrested Monday on suspicion of committing lewd acts with children younger than 14, said Los Angeles police Officer Grace Brady. 
 
Last month, three of his students at Hollywood's Chedar Menachem School, 5120 Melrose Ave., reported that the Yomtov kept them in class during recess and molested them during the current school year, she said. The victims are between 8 and 10 years old, according to police. Yomtov was charged with 10 felonies in connection with the alleged molestations, police said.


____________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi Accused of Molesting Young Male Students
By KENNETH REICH, TIMES STAFF WRITER
December 7, 2001 - LOS ANGELES TIMES

A rabbi who taught Hebrew at a private school in Hollywood was in jail Thursday in lieu of $500,000 bail on charges of committing lewd acts with three of his male students, ages 8 to 10.
 
Los Angeles police said Mordechai Yomtov, 36, was arrested Monday on 10 felony counts, one for each alleged act. They appealed to the public to come forward to identify other incidents that may have occurred during the last seven years.
 
Yomtov has taught during that time at the Chedar Menachem School, an all-male Orthodox Jewish school serving about 185 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. The school, at 5120 Melrose Ave., was in session behind locked gates as usual Thursday and officials declined to discuss the case beyond issuing a written statement.
 
"Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment," the statement said. "We request that our privacy be respected.
 
"The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities," it said.
 
Yomtov was arraigned Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. He pleaded not guilty to all counts, and a preliminary hearing was set for Dec. 17 in Judge Michael Sauer's court. Detectives said the investigation began last month after three students each reported to the LAPD that Yomtov had molested them in a classroom while other students were at recess.
 
Det. Dale Darraclough said police experience in such cases has been that other students may have been molested too, and so the police are asking anyone with further knowledge to call investigators at a 24-hour toll-free number, (877) 529-3855. 
 
____________________________________________________________________________________

A Rabbi Is Accused Of Molesting A Student - More Possible Victims
December  6, 2001
 
LOS ANGELES — There could be more victims. That is the word from Los Angeles police as they probe the case of a Hollywood-area Rabbi arrested on suspicion of child molestation.
 
Mordechai Yomtov, 36, was arrested Monday on suspicion of committing lewd acts with children younger than 14, said Los Angeles police Officer Grace Brady.
 
Last month, three of his students at Hollywood's Chedar Menachem School, 5120 Melrose Ave., reported that the Yomtov kept them in class during recess and molested them during the current school year, she said.
 
The victims are between 8 and 10 years old, according to police.
 
Yomtov was charged with 10 felonies in connection with the alleged molestations, police said.

____________________________________________________________________________________

A Rabbi Is Accused Of Molesting A Student - More Possible Victims
KABC News - December 7, 2002

LOS ANGELES — There could be more victims. That is the word from Los Angeles police as they probe the case of a Hollywood-area Rabbi arrested on suspicion of child molestation.

Mordechai Yomtov, 36, was arrested Monday on suspicion of committing lewd acts with children younger than 14, said Los Angeles police Officer Grace Brady.

Last month, three of his students at Hollywood's Chedar Menachem School, 5120 Melrose Ave., reported that the Yomtov kept them in class during recess and molested them during the current school year, she said.

The victims are between 8 and 10 years old, according to police.

Yomtov was charged with 10 felonies in connection with the alleged molestations, police said.
____________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi Accused of Molesting Young Male Students
By Kenneth Reich
Los Angeles Times - December 7, 2001

A rabbi who taught Hebrew at a private school in Hollywood was in jail Thursday in lieu of $500,000 bail on charges of committing lewd acts with three of his male students, ages 8 to 10. 

Los Angeles police said Mordechai Yomtov, 36, was arrested Monday on 10 felony counts, one for each alleged act. They appealed to the public to come forward to identify other incidents that may have occurred during the last seven years. 

Yomtov has taught during that time at the Chedar Menachem School, an all-male Orthodox Jewish school serving about 185 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. 

The school, at 5120 Melrose Ave., was in session behind locked gates as usual Thursday and officials declined to discuss the case beyond issuing a written statement. 

"Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment," the statement said. "We request that our privacy be respected. 

"The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities," it said. 

Yomtov was arraigned Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. He pleaded not guilty to all counts, and a preliminary hearing was set for Dec. 17 in Judge Michael Sauer's court. 

Detectives said the investigation began last month after three students each reported to the LAPD that Yomtov had molested them in a classroom while other students were at recess. 

Det. Dale Darraclough said police experience in such cases has been that other students may have been molested too, and so the police are asking anyone with further knowledge to call investigators at a 24-hour toll-free number, (877) 529-3855. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi Jailed: Instructor at Cheder Menachem grade school accused of molesting boys.
By Julie Gruenbaum Fax
The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles - December 14, 2001


A rabbi accused of molesting three boys at a Chabad elementary school was arrested Dec. 3 and remained at the L.A. Men's Central Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail as The Journal went to press.
 
Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov's arrest on 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with children came following an investigation by the LAPD after three boys, ages 8 to 10, reported last month that Yomtov was keeping each of them alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess.
 
Yomtov, 36, an Australian-born rabbi with a wife and four children, pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court is set for Dec. 17.
 
Yomtov has taught 8- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a school with 220 boys, kindergarten through eighth grade, on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Boulevard-La Brea Avenue neighborhood.
 
The school issued a written statement following the arrest: "Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment." The statement went on, "We request that our privacy be respected. The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities."
 
Rabbi Chaim Cunin, spokesman for West Coast Chabad, expressed deep pain at the incident and said the school is doing everything possible to cooperate with the authorities.
"In over 36 years and in well over 30 schools that are under the Chabad umbrella on the West Coast, we have never had to deal with anything remotely similar to this," he said. "It is very painful to even be having this conversation."
 
Cunin said Chabad has arranged for therapists and psychiatrists to come to the school and give the parents, teachers and children the tools they need to deal with the incident. "We are doing everything we can do to be there for the community and the school and the parents, and we are doing anything and everything we can to make sure nothing like this should, God forbid, ever happen again, not in our school or in any school or in any community," he said.
 
Mental health professionals familiar with the situation said the school seems to be taking all the correct restorative steps to help students, parents and staff cope.
 
Dr. David Fox, a clinical psychologist and Orthodox rabbi who is not involved with the Cheder Menachem case, said situations of abuse in the Orthodox community arouse feelings of "shock and grave disappointment."
 
"We expect our people to conform not just to the general standards of moral decency, but to the Torah system. We expect observant Jewish people to function at the highest level of regard for people's welfare and for own moral welfare," he said, adding that nonetheless, in the last seven years or so, "there has been a lot more openness in discussing these issues in discreet forums, and, more and more, the rabbinic community is making use of Orthodox mental health professionals who have specialized training in both prevention and treatment of perpetrators and their victims."
 
Fox himself is a leader in Nefesh, the International Association of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals, which, in conjunction with several Orthodox umbrella organizations, put together a think tank in September 2000 to develop prevention models for the Jewish community.
 
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles (JFS), a beneficiary agency of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, has an Orthodox Counseling Division staffed by Orthodox professionals sensitive to the particular cultural and religious milieu of the community.
 
And, Fox said, he has seen a rise both in the number of articles in rabbinic journals dealing with maladaptive behavior, and in conferences targeting youth leaders, mikvah personnel and educators, to train them how to spot abuse or potentially abusive situations.
 
Still, he acknowledged, "There has not been an overwhelmingly unanimous receptiveness, because many of these groups hail from a tradition where the problems are dealt with very discreetly and in-house, and they shun publicity."
 
Resistance to preventive and educational programs is not exclusive to the Orthodox community, said Sally Weber, director of Jewish Community Programs for JFS, which has developed Steps to Safety, an abuse prevention program involving children, parents and educators that has been presented at some Los Angeles preschools and day schools.
 
There are still a lot of barriers to realizing that this happens in the Jewish community and in Jewish schools. There is a certain resistance to the urgency of it," she said.
 
Weber is meeting this week with several Orthodox principals to review the program and see what changes would be necessary to make the script more appropriate for the observant community.
 
The program involves one session each for teachers, parents and children. It begins with training educators to spot signs of abuse and reviewing the legal issues around reporting suspected abuse. JFS also works with schools to have a system in place so that any abuse can be handled appropriately and efficiently.
 
JFS professionals let parents know what their children will be learning and teach them how to talk to their children about body privacy and abuse. The program for children, tailored to age levels, reviews what is inappropriate behavior, how to get out of uncomfortable situations, and how to tell a trusted adult.
 
One Orthodox mental health professional says the work should not be left just to schools, but should begin at home with children as young as preschool age.
 
"The children need to be taught how and when to say no; they need to be taught that anytime an adult says 'don't tell your Mommy or Daddy,' that you have to tell, even if they [the adult] says Mommy and Daddy won't love you," she said.
 
Fox said that while he and other professionals are not adopting an attitude of "I told you so," there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that cases like the one at Cheder Menachem, devastating as it is, can only help increase awareness.
 
"There's always been a kill-the-messenger attitude in religious circles when someone blows the whistle or tries to alert those in charge to the presence of a deviant or a molester or an abuser," Fox said. "Everyone used to hush these things up, and no one likes to be reminded that these pathologies can seep into religious circles. But when, to our chagrin, some of these situations do attract publicity, there is some satisfaction in the mental health community that now, maybe we will take appropriate steps to offer some prevention."
 
For more information on Steps to Safety, contact Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles at (323) 761-8800. Anyone with information relating to this case should call the LAPD's Sexually Exploited Child Unit, Monday thru Friday at (213) 485-2883. On weekends and evenings, call the Detective Information Desk at (877) 529-3855.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi arrested on 10 counts of molestation
By JULIE GRUENBAUM FAX
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - December 21, 2001
 
LOS ANGELES -- A rabbi accused of molesting three boys at a Chabad elementary school remained at the Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles this week in lieu of $500,000 bail. 
 
Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov was arrested last Monday on 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with children. 
 
The arrest came after a Los Angeles Police Department investigation into claims last month by three boys, ages eight to 10, that Yomtov was keeping each of them alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess. 
 
Yomtov, 36, an Australian-born rabbi with a wife and four children, pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court is set for Dec. 17. 
 
Yomtov has taught eight- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a kindergarten- through eighth-grade school with 220 boys. 
 
Cheder Menachem issued a written statement following the arrest. 
 
"Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment," it read. "We request that our privacy be respected. The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities." 
 
Chaim Cunin, spokesman for West Coast Chabad, said the school is doing everything possible to cooperate with the authorities. 
 
"In over 36 years and in well over 30 schools that are under the Chabad umbrella on the West Coast, we have never had to deal with anything remotely similar to this," Cunin said. "It is very painful to even be having this conversation." 
 
Cunin says Chabad has arranged for therapists and psychiatrists to come into the school.
"We are all of us doing everything we can do to be there for the community and the school and the parents, and we are doing anything and everything we can to make sure nothing like this should G-d forbid ever happen again, not in our school or in any school or in any community," Cunin said. 
 
Mental health professionals familiar with the situation said that the school seems to be taking all the right restorative steps to help students, parents and staff cope with the situation. 
 
Dr. David Fox, a clinical psychologist and Orthodox rabbi who is not involved with the Cheder Menachem case, says situations of abuse in the Orthodox community arouse feelings of "shock and grave disappointment." 
 
"We expect our people to conform not just to the general standards of moral decency, but to the Torah system," Fox said. "We expect observant Jewish people to function at the highest level of regard for people's welfare and for our own moral welfare." 
 
In the past, such attitudes have made Orthodox clergy and leaders reluctant to deal with these issues, but in recent years he has seen a growing willingness to address issues of domestic and child abuse and sexual deviance, Fox said. 
 
"There has been a lot more openness in discussing these issues in discreet forums, and more and more the rabbinic community is making use of Orthodox mental health professionals who have specialized training in both prevention and treatment of perpetrators and their victims," he said. 
 
Fox himself is a leader in Nefesh, The International Association of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals, which put together a think tank in September, 2000 in conjunction with several Orthodox umbrella organizations to develop prevention models for the Jewish community. 
 
Jewish Family Service in Los Angeles has an Orthodox counseling division staffed by Orthodox professionals, sensitive to the community's particular cultural and religious milieu. 
 
Fox also says he has seen a rise in the number of articles in rabbinic journals dealing with maladaptive behavior, and at conferences targeted at youth leaders, mikvah personnel and educators, to train them to spot abuse or potentially abusive situations. 
 
Still, Fox acknowledges that the educational efforts have not reached every corner of the community. 
 
"There has not been an overwhelmingly unanimous receptiveness, because many of these groups hail from a tradition where the problems are dealt with very discreetly and in-house, and they shun publicity," Fox said. 
 
But even those communities are increasingly turning toward the growing pool of Orthodox mental health professionals. 
 
Resistance to preventive and educational programs is not exclusive to the Orthodox community, said Sally Weber, director of Jewish Community Programs for LA's Jewish Family Service. 
 
JFS has developed Steps to Safety, a three-pronged abuse prevention program involving children, parents and educators that has been presented at some Los Angeles preschools and day schools. 
 
"Preschools have been enormously responsive to the program, but it's been difficult to get into day schools in general," she said. 
 
"Part of it is there are still a lot of barriers to realizing that this happens in the Jewish community and in Jewish schools. There is a certain resistance to the urgency of it." 
 
Weber is meeting this week with several Orthodox principals to review the program to see what changes would be necessary to make the script more appropriate for the observant community. 
 
One Orthodox mental health professional said the work should not be left just to schools, but should begin at home with children as young as preschool age. 
 
"The children need to be taught how and when to say no, they need to be taught that their privates are their own, they need to be taught that any time an adult says 'don't tell your Mommy or Daddy,' that you have to tell, even if they say Mommy and Daddy won't love you," she said. 
 
Fox said that while he and other professionals are not adopting an "I told you so" attitude, there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that cases like the one at Cheder Menachem can only increase awareness. 
 
"There's always been a 'kill the messenger' attitude in religious circles, when someone blows the whistle or tries to alert those in charge to the presence of a deviant or a molester or an abuser," he said. "Everyone used to hush these things up and no one likes to be reminded that these pathologies can seep into religious circles. But when, to our chagrin, some of these situations do attract publicity, there is some satisfaction in mental health community that now maybe we will take appropriate steps to offer some prevention.''
 
____________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi sentenced to year in prison for lewd acts
Hebrew Teacher Pleads Guilty to Lewd Acts
Los Angeles Times - February 5, 2002

LOS ANGELES - A rabbi who taught Hebrew at a private school in Hollywood pleaded guilty Monday to sexual abuse and committing lewd acts against three boys.
 
Mordecai Yomtov, 36, a teacher at Chedar Menachem School, was charged in December with committing 10 lewd acts against three boys, ages 8 to 10. Conviction on all counts could have sent him to prison for 40 years, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Irene Wakabayashi.
 
In the plea arrangement, he was allowed to plead guilty to two acts of continuous sexual abuse of minors and one count of lewd conduct, Wakabayashi said.
 
In addition to the jail time and probation, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer ordered that he not associate with minors or seek any jobs teaching minors.
 
The all-male Orthodox Jewish school on Melrose Avenue serves about 185 students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Instructor at Cheder Menachem grade school accused of molesting boys
By Julie Gruenbaum Fax
The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles - December 14, 2001


A rabbi accused of molesting three boys at a Chabad elementary school was arrested Dec. 3 and remained at the L.A. Men's Central Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail as The Journal went to press.
 
Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov's arrest on 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with children came following an investigation by the LAPD after three boys, ages 8 to 10, reported last month that Yomtov was keeping each of them alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess.
 
Yomtov, 36, an Australian-born rabbi with a wife and four children, pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court is set for Dec. 17.
 
Yomtov has taught 8- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a school with 220 boys, kindergarten through eighth grade, on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Boulevard-La Brea Avenue neighborhood. 
 
The school issued a written statement following the arrest: "Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment." The statement went on, "We request that our privacy be respected. The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities."
 
Rabbi Chaim Cunin, spokesman for West Coast Chabad, expressed deep pain at the incident and said the school is doing everything possible to cooperate with the authorities.
"In over 36 years and in well over 30 schools that are under the Chabad umbrella on the West Coast, we have never had to deal with anything remotely similar to this," he said. "It is very painful to even be having this conversation."
 
Cunin said Chabad has arranged for therapists and psychiatrists to come to the school and give the parents, teachers and children the tools they need to deal with the incident. "We are doing everything we can do to be there for the community and the school and the parents, and we are doing anything and everything we can to make sure nothing like this should, God forbid, ever happen again, not in our school or in any school or in any community," he said.
 
Mental health professionals familiar with the situation said the school seems to be taking all the correct restorative steps to help students, parents and staff cope. 
 
Dr. David Fox, a clinical psychologist and Orthodox rabbi who is not involved with the Cheder Menachem case, said situations of abuse in the Orthodox community arouse feelings of "shock and grave disappointment."
 
"We expect our people to conform not just to the general standards of moral decency, but to the Torah system. We expect observant Jewish people to function at the highest level of regard for people's welfare and for own moral welfare," he said, adding that nonetheless, in the last seven years or so, "there has been a lot more openness in discussing these issues in discreet forums, and, more and more, the rabbinic community is making use of Orthodox mental health professionals who have specialized training in both prevention and treatment of perpetrators and their victims." 
 
Fox himself is a leader in Nefesh, the International Association of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals, which, in conjunction with several Orthodox umbrella organizations, put together a think tank in September 2000 to develop prevention models for the Jewish community.
 
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles (JFS), a beneficiary agency of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, has an Orthodox Counseling Division staffed by Orthodox professionals sensitive to the particular cultural and religious milieu of the community.
 
And, Fox said, he has seen a rise both in the number of articles in rabbinic journals dealing with maladaptive behavior, and in conferences targeting youth leaders, mikvah personnel and educators, to train them how to spot abuse or potentially abusive situations.
 
Still, he acknowledged, "There has not been an overwhelmingly unanimous receptiveness, because many of these groups hail from a tradition where the problems are dealt with very discreetly and in-house, and they shun publicity." 
 
Resistance to preventive and educational programs is not exclusive to the Orthodox community, said Sally Weber, director of Jewish Community Programs for JFS, which has developed Steps to Safety, an abuse prevention program involving children, parents and educators that has been presented at some Los Angeles preschools and day schools.
 
There are still a lot of barriers to realizing that this happens in the Jewish community and in Jewish schools. There is a certain resistance to the urgency of it," she said. 
 
Weber is meeting this week with several Orthodox principals to review the program and see what changes would be necessary to make the script more appropriate for the observant community.
 
The program involves one session each for teachers, parents and children. It begins with training educators to spot signs of abuse and reviewing the legal issues around reporting suspected abuse. JFS also works with schools to have a system in place so that any abuse can be handled appropriately and efficiently.
 
JFS professionals let parents know what their children will be learning and teach them how to talk to their children about body privacy and abuse. The program for children, tailored to age levels, reviews what is inappropriate behavior, how to get out of uncomfortable situations, and how to tell a trusted adult.
 
One Orthodox mental health professional says the work should not be left just to schools, but should begin at home with children as young as preschool age.
 
"The children need to be taught how and when to say no; they need to be taught that anytime an adult says 'don't tell your Mommy or Daddy,' that you have to tell, even if they [the adult] says Mommy and Daddy won't love you," she said.
 
Fox said that while he and other professionals are not adopting an attitude of "I told you so," there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that cases like the one at Cheder Menachem, devastating as it is, can only help increase awareness.
 
"There's always been a kill-the-messenger attitude in religious circles when someone blows the whistle or tries to alert those in charge to the presence of a deviant or a molester or an abuser," Fox said. "Everyone used to hush these things up, and no one likes to be reminded that these pathologies can seep into religious circles. But when, to our chagrin, some of these situations do attract publicity, there is some satisfaction in the mental health community that now, maybe we will take appropriate steps to offer some prevention."
 
For more information on Steps to Safety, contact Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles at (323) 761-8800. Anyone with information relating to this case should call the LAPD's Sexually Exploited Child Unit, Monday thru Friday at (213) 485-2883. On weekends and evenings, call the Detective Information Desk at (877) 529-3855.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi Jailed - Instructor at Cheder Menachem grade school accused of molesting boys.
By Julie Gruenbaum Fax
Jewish Journal - December 13, 2001


A rabbi accused of molesting three boys at a Chabad elementary school was arrested Dec. 3 and remained at the L.A. Men's Central Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail as The Journal went to press.
 
Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov's arrest on 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with children came following an investigation by the LAPD after three boys, ages 8 to 10, reported last month that Yomtov was keeping each of them alone in the classroom and molesting them while the other children were at recess.
 
Yomtov, 36, an Australian-born rabbi with a wife and four children, pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court is set for Dec. 17.
 
Yomtov has taught 8- to 10-year-olds for six years at Cheder Menachem, a school with 220 boys, kindergarten through eighth grade, on Melrose Avenue in the Beverly Boulevard-La Brea Avenue neighborhood.
 
The school issued a written statement following the arrest: "Due to the sensitivity of the issues involved and to protect the privacy of our students, parents, teachers and staff, the school will be making no public comment." The statement went on, "We request that our privacy be respected. The school is cooperating fully with all applicable authorities."
 
Rabbi Chaim Cunin, spokesman for West Coast Chabad, expressed deep pain at the incident and said the school is doing everything possible to cooperate with the authorities.
"In over 36 years and in well over 30 schools that are under the Chabad umbrella on the West Coast, we have never had to deal with anything remotely similar to this," he said. "It is very painful to even be having this conversation."
 
Cunin said Chabad has arranged for therapists and psychiatrists to come to the school and give the parents, teachers and children the tools they need to deal with the incident. "We are doing everything we can do to be there for the community and the school and the parents, and we are doing anything and everything we can to make sure nothing like this should, God forbid, ever happen again, not in our school or in any school or in any community," he said.
 
Mental health professionals familiar with the situation said the school seems to be taking all the correct restorative steps to help students, parents and staff cope.
 
Dr. David Fox, a clinical psychologist and Orthodox rabbi who is not involved with the Cheder Menachem case, said situations of abuse in the Orthodox community arouse feelings of "shock and grave disappointment."
 
"We expect our people to conform not just to the general standards of moral decency, but to the Torah system. We expect observant Jewish people to function at the highest level of regard for people's welfare and for own moral welfare," he said, adding that nonetheless, in the last seven years or so, "there has been a lot more openness in discussing these issues in discreet forums, and, more and more, the rabbinic community is making use of Orthodox mental health professionals who have specialized training in both prevention and treatment of perpetrators and their victims."
 
Fox himself is a leader in Nefesh, the International Association of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals, which, in conjunction with several Orthodox umbrella organizations, put together a think tank in September 2000 to develop prevention models for the Jewish community.
 
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles (JFS), a beneficiary agency of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, has an Orthodox Counseling Division staffed by Orthodox professionals sensitive to the particular cultural and religious milieu of the community.
 
And, Fox said, he has seen a rise both in the number of articles in rabbinic journals dealing with maladaptive behavior, and in conferences targeting youth leaders, mikvah personnel and educators, to train them how to spot abuse or potentially abusive situations.
 
Still, he acknowledged, "There has not been an overwhelmingly unanimous receptiveness, because many of these groups hail from a tradition where the problems are dealt with very discreetly and in-house, and they shun publicity."
 
Resistance to preventive and educational programs is not exclusive to the Orthodox community, said Sally Weber, director of Jewish Community Programs for JFS, which has developed Steps to Safety, an abuse prevention program involving children, parents and educators that has been presented at some Los Angeles preschools and day schools.
 
There are still a lot of barriers to realizing that this happens in the Jewish community and in Jewish schools. There is a certain resistance to the urgency of it," she said.
 
Weber is meeting this week with several Orthodox principals to review the program and see what changes would be necessary to make the script more appropriate for the observant community.
The program involves one session each for teachers, parents and children. It begins with training educators to spot signs of abuse and reviewing the legal issues around reporting suspected abuse. JFS also works with schools to have a system in place so that any abuse can be handled appropriately and efficiently.
 
JFS professionals let parents know what their children will be learning and teach them how to talk to their children about body privacy and abuse. The program for children, tailored to age levels, reviews what is inappropriate behavior, how to get out of uncomfortable situations, and how to tell a trusted adult.
 
One Orthodox mental health professional says the work should not be left just to schools, but should begin at home with children as young as preschool age.
 
"The children need to be taught how and when to say no; they need to be taught that anytime an adult says 'don't tell your Mommy or Daddy,' that you have to tell, even if they [the adult] says Mommy and Daddy won't love you," she said.
 
Fox said that while he and other professionals are not adopting an attitude of "I told you so," there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that cases like the one at Cheder Menachem, devastating as it is, can only help increase awareness.
 
"There's always been a kill-the-messenger attitude in religious circles when someone blows the whistle or tries to alert those in charge to the presence of a deviant or a molester or an abuser," Fox said. "Everyone used to hush these things up, and no one likes to be reminded that these pathologies can seep into religious circles. But when, to our chagrin, some of these situations do attract publicity, there is some satisfaction in the mental health community that now, maybe we will take appropriate steps to offer some prevention."
 
For more information on Steps to Safety, contact Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles at (323) 761-8800. Anyone with information relating to this case should call the LAPD's Sexually Exploited Child Unit, Monday thru Friday at (213) 485-2883. On weekends and evenings, call the Detective Information Desk at (877) 529-3855. 
 
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Yomtov Pleads Guilty
By Wendy J. Madnick
Jewish Journal - February 7, 2002


Teacher Mordechai Yomtov stood sobbing in his orange prison jumpsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court as he pleaded guilty to two counts of committing continuous sexual abuse on a minor and one count of lewd act on a minor.
 
The Feb. 4 plea follows an agreement worked out between the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and defense counsel. Yomtov was sentenced to one year in County Jail, followed by five years' probation.
 
Yomtov, 36, was arrested Dec. 3 and charged with 10 felony counts of committing lewd acts with three of his students, ages 8 to 10, at Cheder Menachem, an all-boys Orthodox yeshiva located in Hollywood and run under the auspices of West Coast Chabad.
 
Four family members of the three victims in the case were present; one mother even moved closer to force Yomtov to face her as he admitted to the crimes.
 
Yomtov's attorney, Mitchell W. Egers, said he told his client it was possible to fight the charges but Yomtov declined.
 
"He told me he did not want to subject the children or their families to a trial or to cross-examination," Egers said, adding that his client is not a rabbi as previously reported (students traditionally call teachers there "rebbe").
 
The court ordered Yomtov to have no contact with the victims, their families or with any minors without an adult present, with the exception of his own three children. He must also undergo psychiatric treatment through USC for the length of his term (including probation) and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Following his jail term, he is prohibited from seeking employment in any position where he would be teaching minors.
 
The parents said they were satisfied with the agreement.
 
"Under the circumstances I think he is extremely lucky," said the father of one victim. "If we didn't work with the district attorney, this guy would have got 25 years to life. But we understand that he is ill. He has an addiction that is not treatable."
 
The man said his son, one in a family of seven children, was undergoing therapy as a result of the incident.
 
"Only time will tell. Sometimes he acts like nothing is wrong and other times you can see it is affecting him," he said.
 
The boy, like the other victims, is still attending Cheder Menachem. Attorneys for two of the families say they have not ruled out a civil suit against the school.
 
"I'm pleased that the process of holding those accountable for the terrible crimes against these children has begun," said Gary Wittenberg, a civil litigator, adding that any further actions "depend on what develops over the next few days and weeks."
 
The father of the one victim said he hoped the case brought cloure not only for his son, but also for the rest of Yomtov's victims.
 
"We know there were other victims who have not come forward and my prayer is for their parents to get these kids help," he said. "I also hope this clears up the rumors that the boys were making this up. there were people even last night telling me that. I hope [the plea agreement] will put those rumors to rest for good."
 
In response to the resolution of the case, Rabbi Chaim Cunin, director of West Coast Chabad, issued the following statement: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families that make up the Cheder Menachem community. We are very thankful to the various organizations, including Jewish Family Service and Ohel, that continue to support and guide Cheder Menachem through the healing process." 
____________________________________________________________________________________
 
Hebrew Teacher Pleads Guilty to Lewd Acts
Los Angeles Times - February 5, 2002 

A rabbi who taught Hebrew at a private school in Hollywood pleaded guilty Monday to sexual abuse and committing lewd acts against three boys. 

Mordecai Yomtov, 36, a teacher at Chedar Menachem School, was charged in December with committing 10 lewd acts against three boys, ages 8 to 10. 

Conviction on all counts could have sent him to prison for 40 years, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Irene Wakabayashi. 

In the plea arrangement, he was allowed to plead guilty to two acts of continuous sexual abuse of minors and one count of lewd conduct, Wakabayashi said. 

In addition to the jail time and probation, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer ordered that he not associate with minors or seek any jobs teaching minors. 

The all-male Orthodox Jewish school on Melrose Avenue serves about 185 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. 



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Schools Adopt Guide to Block Sex Abuse
by Julie Gruenbaum
The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, June 20, 2003

A national group representing more than 700 Orthodox day schools recently adopted sexual abuse prevention guidelines that were developed by a department of the Jewish Family Service (JFS) in Los Angeles.

Nearly all of the two dozen Orthodox schools in Los Angeles had signed on to a similar policy last year aimed at preventing and reporting verbal, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Torah U'mesorah, The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, adapted its new policy from the one implemented in Los Angeles.

"We need to develop a culture of creating safety," said Debbie Fox, director of Aleinu Family Resource Center of JFS, which wrote the guidelines. "It's not only, 'don't abuse the child,' but watch the way you talk with them, watch the way you correct them or encourage them to change, watch the teasing that goes on."

A version of the policy will be discussed at a training session for camp directors next week, and Fox encourages parents to ask camps whether their counselors have signed on to the guidelines.

Last summer, when the abuse policy was in its final draft form, David Schwartz was accused of molesting 4-year-old boys at an Orthodox day camp in Culver City. He is currently serving one year in a residential facility, after which he will be on probation for five years.

The Schwartz case was one in a string of abuse incidents that has rocked the Orthodox community over the last few years. Locally, Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov is currently on probation after serving a year in prison for molesting boys at Cheder Menachem school in the La Brea area.

Nationally, an Orthodox Union report found Rabbi Baruch Lanner guilty of widespread and long-term sexual, physical and psychological abuse of teens in three decades of work at the National Conference of Synagogue Youth. Lanner is free pending an appeal after being sentenced last June to seven years in prison for sexually abusing two girls when he was principal of a New Jersey yeshiva in the 1990s.

The Lanner case, in particular, opened up Orthodox channels of communication regarding the abuse issue and led to an increased vigilance among institutions.

The high-profile cases went along with what Fox was seeing through the lens of Aleinu's caseload. When Fox came three years ago, the Orthodox Counseling Program, which recently changed its name to Aleinu, had 11 cases. Today it has about 50 clients and a program of placing social workers in schools, through which it serves about 150 children a week.

In addition, Aleinu runs Nishma, a hotline that was initially conceived as a spousal abuse line, but, like Aleinu, has broadened its mandate after receiving a wider range of calls.

"What we deal with every day are the problems, but that is not an indication that the Orthodox community has significantly more problems than anyone else," Fox said. "It is an indication that we are creating an environment where we can face these issues and invite them to come forward, so we can deal with them as well as we can."

One of the issues she saw was sexual abuse. Early last summer, Fox convened a meeting with the Halachic Advisory Board of Jewish Family Service and the Rabbinic Council of California's (RCC) Family Commission, two groups that work closely together.

With input from parents, educators, mental health professionals and the scrutinizing panel of rabbis, plus endorsement from leading halachic authorities, Aleinu developed the Conduct Policy and Behavioral Standards for Orthodox Schools.

The policy goes further than forbidding sexual contact or even the use of explicit language, materials or sexual innuendo. It warns teachers and staff never to be secluded with a child. There is strong wording against the use of physical force and any unwelcome physical contact, as well as against making any comments about a student's body or clothing.

Teachers and staff are warned against denigrating students or attempting to manipulate students through psychological means, and they are forbidden from instructing students to keep secrets from parents or administration.

All teachers, staff, administrators and clerical and custodial staff are required to sign the guidelines.

When abuse is suspected, either at home or in school, Aleinu guides the family through the legal system and makes sure all their needs are met -- from finding a Jewish foster home, if necessary, to making sure a carpool is arranged to going into the school to talk with teachers, principals and other students.

Rabbi Berish Goldenberg, principal of Yeshiva Rav Isaacsohn-Toras Emes and chair of the RCC's Family Commission, noted how far the Orthodox community has come in tackling difficult issues openly.

The embrace of an Aleinu social worker and the adoption of the abuse guidelines at Toras Emes -- where much progress has been made in the last few years away from an old-school style of education -- are indicative of the community's newfound willingness to combine modern psychological sensibilities with a strictly observant mindset.

Goldenberg attributes the leap to the growing roster of problems today's families face and an awareness that professional help is neither treif (non-kosher) nor a shandah (humiliation).

"And there are many Orthodox people in the mental health professional world today, so there is more trust," Goldenberg added.

The advisory board rabbis, who themselves go through psychological training, are available around the clock to answer halachic questions and counsel clients. In one instance, a rabbi sat in on a counseling session to answer a 16-year-old girl's question about whether testifying against her father violated the mitzvah of honoring your parents. Another time, a rabbi and social worker together counseled an abused wife who wanted to know whether she was required to go to the mikvah to perform the ritual bathing that would make sex with her husband permissible.

When Schwartz was sentenced, both Goldenberg and Rabbi Gershon Bess, one of the most respected rabbis in the city, spoke in court to offer support to the victims. When Schwartz is released in February, he will be -- willingly or not -- in the jurisdiction of the RCC's beit din (rabbinical court), which might impose limits on where he may go to shul, which simcha (celebration) he may attend and whether he may enter public restrooms alone.

Like all of Aleinu's programs, even the beit din's monitoring will most likely have a restorative angle, guiding Schwartz through therapy, for example.

"The beauty is that the rabbis are so sensitive to mental health issues and to understanding what we do so clearly, that their response is very sensitive to the issues of the person," Fox said. "It's a beautiful thing."



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WARNING: Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov Missing
The Awareness Center's Daily Newsletter - October 11, 2005 

Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov, is in violation of sex offender registration requirements in California for past 2 years. If you know his whereabout please notify the California authorities. 

----------------------------------------
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Phone number (916) 227-4974
E-mail address - MegansLaw@doj.ca.gov
Mailing address:
California Department of Justice
Sex Offender Tracking Program
P. O. Box 903387
Sacramento, CA 94203-3870

---------------------
http://meganslaw.ca.gov

Last Name: YOMTOV
First Name: MORDECHAI
Middle Name:
THIS SEX OFFENDER HAS BEEN IN VIOLATION OF REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS SINCE 03/21/2003.

1) Description
Last Known Address:
County:
Zip Code
Date of Birth: 03-10-1965
Sex: MALE
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 170
Eye Color: BROWN
Hair Color: BLACK
Ethnicity: WHITE

2) Offenses
Offense Code
Description
288(a) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS
288.5(a) CONTINUOUS SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILD

3) Scars/Marks/Tattoos
GLASSSES

4) Known Aliases
None



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Dealing With Schmutz
By David Suissa
Jewish Journal - August 17, 2007



It is believed the convicted Rabbi discussed at the end of this article is Rabbi Mordechai Yomtov formerly of Chabad Chedar Menachem School.


The other day, a remarkable neighbor named Dennis Brown was telling me about a Chasidic kid who had rebelled against his parents and his religious lifestyle and gotten into drugs. After a couple of rough years, he got professional help, sobered up and started reconnecting with his observant upbringing. He was even enjoying going to shul on Shabbat. But there was a little detail that drove his parents nuts.

The kid wore pleated pants.

For the parents, it wasn't very "chassidishe" to wear pleated plants. They saw it as a sign of secular fashion. Not a good omen. So when they met with Dennis to discuss the boy's progress, they brought up the pleated pants.

Dennis went ballistic.

When Dennis goes ballistic, he has to tell you he's going ballistic, because you can't tell from his body language. Nothing changes on this man's face. It's sculpted in granite.

Still, when he told me the story of the pleated pants, you could see the emotion smoldering beneath the surface. He had spent many long hours working with the kid. He had helped turn his life around. He was counting his blessings. Meanwhile, the parents were sitting there kvetching about pleated pants. How could they be so blind?

This notion of blindness is a common theme in the life of Dennis, a Chasidic Jew and professional counselor in his early 60s who runs the state-certified Ness Counseling Center in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood. Dennis deals with what he calls "the schmutz of life" on a daily basis -- physical and sexual abuse, drugs, marital and family problems, wife beating, pleated pants.

As I sat with him in his office right off La Cienega Boulevard, with the famous gaze of the Lubavitcher Rebbe hovering above us from a picture on the wall, he kept going back to the theme of blindness.

"People see what they want to see", he said. "The parents [of the Chasidic kid] were blind to the pain that got him into drugs in the first place, and when he started to get out of it, they were blind to his progress. They could only see the pleated pants."

Although the Ness Center caters to everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike, the majority of their cases are with Orthodox Jews -- perhaps, as he says, because the Orthodox prefer to deal with one of their own, especially when highly sensitive subjects are involved.

Dennis is not naive. He understands his insular Orthodox community. There's always a good reason to sweep the schmutz under the carpet: It's a desecration of God's name for a Jew wearing a yarmulke to do something immoral or criminal; it puts an indelible stain on the community; it can ostracize a family and make it hard for their children to find a good mate. He's heard it all.

And what happens when all hell breaks loose? When a woman has taken one too many blows? Or when a kid is about to overdose?

Well, that's usually when they call Dennis -- when much of the damage has already been done.

That's why Dennis rails against blindness. He sees a greater shame in hiding the schmutz than in confronting it early and honestly. He tells victims of abuse not to wait until it gets unbearable. He wants to see people before the pain gets too deep.

Strangely, as I listened to Dennis talk about the vile stuff he's seen in his 30 years of working in the field, I didn't sense in him any feeling of Jewish or communal shame. For this ultra-Orthodox Jew with a long white beard, when it comes to human behavior, there is no Jew or non-Jew, no Orthodox or non-Orthodox. There are only humans. He doesn't see a black hat or a yarmulke or a wig. He sees a kid who's misunderstood. A wife who's overwhelmed. Parents who don't get it. A man with a sickness. A woman who needs immediate protection.

He sees pain and sickness, before he sees religion and shame.

His forthrightness hasn't always endeared him to the Orthodox community. A few years ago, when an Orthodox rabbi was convicted of child abuse and had spent time in jail, a group of Orthodox rabbis and leaders got together to raise funds to help the convicted rabbi leave town. When they contacted Dennis for help, he told them what they didn't want to hear: They should use the money to get the convicted rabbi professional help, not to help him take his sickness somewhere else.
In other words, he wanted them to open their eyes and see the real problem: a Jewish man with a sickness and potential future victims, rather than a community with a black eye.

The man ended up leaving town.

The notion of sickness as applied to human behavior is not a popular one in Torah-observant circles. Abusive and aberrant behavior is usually seen as a failure of character. If you follow the Torah, you should never have to use drugs or abuse anyone. When someone cracks -- when human reality trumps Torah observance -- the instinct is not to deal with the problem, but to circle the wagons and defend the honor of the community.

Dennis is encouraged that emerging groups like Aleinu and Aish Tamid, with the support of many Orthodox rabbis, are trying to deal honestly with the "dark side of life," which no part of the Jewish world is immune to, even the Torah observant.

When I ask him if it's better for the image of the Orthodox community, in the long run, to deal honestly and openly with their troubled elements, I see a hint of impatience in his granite face. Clearly, this man has little time to ponder notions like "long term" and "image."

There's a woman on the phone waiting to speak to him and, apparently, she's quite agitated.

Let's hope she's not calling about pleated pants.


David Suissa, an advertising executive, is founder of OLAM magazine and Meals4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org.

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LAUSD settles suit from 2 teens 
Los Angeles Daily News - December 14, 2007

Los Angeles Unified settled a civil lawsuit brought by two teenagers who were molested as adolescents by a teacher at a Jewish private school near Hollywood, court papers obtained Thursday show. 

The settlement was filed Monday. 

The terms were not divulged in court records. 

Mordechai Yomtov, 42, pleaded guilty in February 2002 to charges of lewd and lascivious conduct involving a total of three boys, then ages 8 to 10, in 2001-02. Yomtov taught Hebrew at Cheder Menachem and kept boys alone in a classroom during recess, police said. 

Although the school is private, LAUSD administered the school's Title 1 program for disadvantaged youth and it employed a school psychologist there. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
California Sex Offender Registry - October 10, 2005
http://meganslaw.ca.gov

 
Phone number (916) 227-4974         E-mail address - MegansLaw@doj.ca.gov
Last Name: YOMTOV       First Name: MORDECHAI     Middle Name: None
 
THIS SEX OFFENDER HAS BEEN IN VIOLATION OF REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS SINCE 03/21/2003.
 
Date of Birth: 03-10-1965    Sex: MALE                 Height: 6'0"      Weight: 170
Eye Color: BROWN          Hair Color: BLACK         Ethnicity: WHITE
Offenses:  
  1. LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS
  2. CONTINUOUS SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILD

___________________________________________________________________________________


Child Sex-Abuse Scandal in Australia's Jewish Community Spills Into U.S.

Allegations Surface That Child Molesters Were Protected
By Paul Berger
The Forward - February 17, 2012



A child sex abuse scandal in Australia’s Jewish community has spilled into America, as a pending extradition, arrests in Australia and a slew of cover-up allegations put that community’s response to molestation under scrutiny.

Australian police are seeking to extradite convicted child molester David Kramer, currently in jail in Farmington, Mo., on suspicion of having abused children at a Chabad school in Melbourne during the 1990s.

Kramer, who was reportedly spirited out of Australia by one of Melbourne’s Chabad leaders following abuse allegations, is halfway through a seven-year prison sentence for sodomizing a 12-year-old boy in St. Louis.

According to members of the Australian community, he is not the only molester to end up in the United States after Australian community leaders failed to report them to legal authorities. Other molesters fled the country more recently as suspicion of abuse fell on them, community members say.
The Forward has learned that at least two suspected molesters from the Australian Jewish community are living in the United States while they are under investigation in Australia.

Meanwhile, Manny Waks, a former vice president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, accused an Australian living in New York of molesting him when he was a boy.

Waks, 35, who has been the catalyst for revelations about the Melbourne abuse scandal, told the Forward he was molested by Velvel Serebryanski, son of a prominent Chabad rabbi, at two Melbourne synagogues during the late 1980s.

Serebryanski, who goes by the name Zev Sero in New York, did not deny the allegations when a Forward reporter asked him about them at his Brooklyn home.

Serebryanski, 47, declined to speak on the record about the allegations. His father, Rabbi Aaron Serebryanski, is one of Chabad’s principal emissaries to Australia.

Waks claims that Serebryanski molested him on several occasions, including when he went to lie down during an all-night Shavuot study session in a synagogue at Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre, a Chabad institution.

Waks said Serebryanski began to molest him in the synagogue and then said: “This isn’t for a place of worship. Let’s go outside.”

According to Waks, who was about 12 at the time, Serebryanski then led him into a nearby restroom.
The charges are contained in a police report that Waks filed in 1996.

In that same report, Waks details how he was also abused by David Cyprys, a Melbourne karate instructor.

Cyprys is about to stand trial in Australia on dozens of sex charges related to the abuse of 11 boys.

During a magistrates court hearing in Melbourne last year, Detective Senior Constable Lisa Metcher “accused members of the Yeshivah community of lying to police and trying to cover up sex abuse claims,” according to The Age, an Australian newspaper.

”They failed to act in any way to protect children,” the newspaper stated that Metcher told the court.

Waks went public last year with accusations that he was repeatedly molested while attending the Yeshivah Centre’s boys school, Yeshivah College.

His call for other victims to come forward shattered decades of denial. Press reports related how Victoria state police were inundated with testimony from young men who said they were abused.

Australian police are currently investigating more than a dozen Orthodox individuals suspected of child abuse in Australia, according to Joel Berman, a Los Angeles resident who has been in touch with detectives on aspects of the cases in the United States.
Berman said two people under investigation are currently in the United States. Police declined to speak to the Forward.

Many of the charges relate to the 1980s and ’90s, a time when rabbis in a number of Orthodox communities appear to have dealt with abuse by either turning a blind eye or throwing molesters out of the community.

At the center of the controversy is Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the former head of the Yeshivah Centre.

Waks and other victims and their families claim they alerted Groner about abusers many times, but he failed to act.

In 1991, a child brought allegations of abuse against Cyprys. The following year, Cyprys pleaded guilty to a sexual offense and was fined, but Chabad officials allowed him to remain at the school, where he worked as a security guard until recently.

Waks said he confronted Groner about Cyprys in 1996 and in 2000, but Groner continued to allow him to work for the center. Groner died in 2008.

Even one of Groner’s defenders, Pini Althaus, said the rabbi threatened to report suspected abusers to the authorities — unless they moved elsewhere.

Althaus, a Brooklyn Chabad member whose father is a Yeshivah Centre trustee, stated in a comment posted on the VozIzNeias blog: “In the case of two American citizens who acted inappropriately, Rabbi Groner gave them the choice to leave the country immediately or face criminal action. In retrospect, perhaps the latter would have been more appropriate; however, this was not the ‘culture’ at that time, to masser or turn someone in to the authorities.”

Yaakov Wolf, an Australian who says Cyprys molested him and who now lives in Los Angeles, said of members of the yeshiva community: “They take these people and think they’ve done their job by sending them off to another community that hasn’t heard about them, and that’s what they’ve done for years.

“They end up sending them to another community, so basically they are throwing their problem onto somebody else.”

The identities of the two American citizens to whom Althaus referred are unclear. Kramer came from a Chabad community in the United States, but a spokesman at Farmington Correctional Center declined to confirm his citizenship.

Althaus declined to speak on the record to the Forward.

Meanwhile, a former Yeshivah College teacher told the Forward that the school failed to act on another occasion, too. In this case, the alleged perpetrator, who also subsequently moved to the United States, was a student.

During the early 1980s, the student, then aged 16 or 17, “took advantage” of a boy several years younger, the former faculty member told the Forward. He said the school refused to expel the abusive student.

“The parents of the abused boy were so horrified that the school would not expel him,” the former Yeshivah College teacher said, “that they ended up taking their son, as well as their two other younger boys, who were in the primary school, out of yeshiva and to another, less frum [observant] school.”

That alleged abuser was Mordechai Yomtov, who, almost 20 years later, was arrested in Los Angeles on charges of sexually abusing three boys at Cheder Menachem, a Chabad school.

In 2001, Yomtov pleaded guilty to molesting the boys, aged between 8 and 10. He served one year in prison and was required to register as a sex offender.

Yomtov has been in violation of sex offender registration requirements since March 2003, according to the website of the California Attorney General’s Office. A spokesman for Attorney General Kamala Harris did not respond to requests for clarification on Yomtov’s whereabouts.

The former Yeshivah College teacher, who did not wish to be named, said he also voiced concerns about Kramer to the school, but no one would listen.

Rabbi Avrohom Glick of Yeshivah College, who is a former principal and still teaches at the school, did not return calls for comment. Rabbi Yehoshua Smukler, the current principal of Yeshivah College, did not respond to calls and emails for comment. Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner, head of the Yeshivah Centre, did not respond to questions sent via email.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner, leader of the Yeshivah Centre synagogue and son-in-law of Yitzchok Dovid Groner, said he could not answer any questions about past events because they occurred before his time. “I wasn’t here,” Telsner said. “I have no idea what happened.”
Melbourne parents say they do know what happened.

One mother told The Weekend Australian newspaper that when she informed the school that Kramer, a Jewish studies teacher at Yeshivah College, was abusing her child, she was referred for counseling.

The Weekend Australian reported that after the allegations surfaced, Kramer “was flown to Israel at the school’s expense.” Harry Cooper, a former executive at Yeshivah College, told the newspaper: “At the request of the parents, we shipped him off. I remember it vividly.”

Kramer eventually made his way back to the United States and settled in St. Louis.

He became a volunteer youth leader at an Orthodox synagogue, Nusach Hari B’nai Zion.

The congregation’s rabbi, Ze’ev Smason, said Kramer was a “very attractive, dynamic fellow” who won over parents and their children. Then, one day, parents came to Smason with allegations of abuse.

“When the question was one of safety for children who might come in contact with him, he was immediately reported,” Smason said.

In July 2008, Kramer was sentenced to seven years in jail. He is eligible for parole this April. As soon as he is free, police intend to extradite him to Australia to stand trial, Australian media have reported.

Detectives traveled to the United States last year to gather evidence for this and other investigations, the Forward has learned.

Smason said he was glad he had persuaded at least one victim to report Kramer’s abuse in St. Louis. But, he added, there is still a reticence in the Orthodox Jewish community to speak to law enforcement.

Smason said he knows of another molester in the city, but he cannot persuade victims to contact police.

Sexual abuse is difficult enough for many victims to report, but Orthodox Jewish survivors and their families often find it much harder, because of the tight-knit nature of their communities and because of concerns that they are violating religious laws such as mesirah, which prohibits reporting on a fellow Jew to secular authorities. Many are also worried about committing a chilul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name.

Some Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, organizations, such as Agudath Israel of America, still instruct people that unless one has direct knowledge of abuse, such as being a victim himself or herself or personally witnessing such an incident, that person must consult a rabbi before reporting suspicions to the authorities.

Chabad institutions have taken a more liberal approach. A beit din, or religious court, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn issued a ruling around the time that the Melbourne scandal broke, telling followers who suspect abuse that they are not violating religious laws by reporting their suspicions to the police.

Nevertheless, many survivors and their families fear being kicked out of synagogues and schools, or ruining marriage opportunities because of the taint of an abuse allegation.

Smason said people are often reticent to report because they don’t want to sully Judaism’s name, “not realizing that the ultimate chilul Hashem is that these things are kept quiet — and in the process, individuals bounce from community to community.”

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant, immediate past president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, said rabbis’ approach to disclosures of sexual abuse has “definitely changed for the better in recent years.” But Kluwgant added that there has been no attempt to cover up abuse in Australia and that the rabbinate there is committed to addressing the issue.

“A lot [of abuse accusations are] based on rumor and innuendo, unless they’re proven in a court of law,” Kluwgant added. “I could tell you lots of lashon hara [evil talk].”
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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead
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